
Class. 



PRESEXTEU BY / 



THE METAPHYSICS 
OF EDUCATION. 



ARTHUR C. FLESHMAN, PH. D. 

Education and Psychology, State Normal School 

Kearney, Nebraska. 



JJUTHOR OF 
'^he Educational 'Process'* 



Boston, Mass. 

MAYHEW PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1914 



.F57 



Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements 

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at 

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY. 



PREFACE 

An attempt is made in this volume to unify the 
various factors in education into an organic whole. 
There is an underlying principle running through 
the discussion which gives unity and coherence to 
the multiplied facts and. activities in education. 
A metaphysics of education grounds the facts and 
processes of education in a world principle and shows 
how this principle takes care of the practical prob- 
lems of education. This text emphasizes the fact 
that there is an inner connection and an inner pen- 
etration of philosophic principles and educational 
facts. 

A comparative study is made of educational facts 
and basal concepts in education in order to test their 
philosophical significance and implications. Such 
facts as teaching, the school, the curriculum, educa- 
tional aims, etc., are compared and related to mind, 
law, interaction, purpose, etc. These problems are 
studied inductively beginning with the concrete educa- 
tional facts, deriving the fundamental conceptions 
in education and finally relating both facts and con- 
cepts to a universal principle which binds both to- 
gether into a harmonious whole. 

Finally a critical study of the principal philo- 
sophical systems is made to ascertain what influence 
each system, atomism, rationalism, pragmatism, 
idealism, etc., has had on educational theory and prac- 
tice. Our pedagogical literature is filled 
with metaphysical concepts and it is impossible 
to teach even one of the common branches without 
using philosophical principles. Systems of thought 
create systems of education; methods of thought 
determine methods of teaching. In fact our whole 
educational procedure is permeated and colored by 
philosophic thinking. 



I am indebted to Dr. H. H. Home of New York 
Univervsity for many valuable suggestions in the prep- 
aration of this text and for a clear exposition of 
philosophy related to education. Also to Dr. Char- 
les Gray Shaw of New York University for some il- 
luminating lectures on the deeper problems of phil- 
osophy. Also to my wife for much valuable as- 
sistance in the preparation of the book. 




m. 



AN EDUCATIONAL INTERPRETATION OF METAPHYSICS. 



The Metaphysics of Education. 

CONTENTS. 

Page. 

I. The Relation of Philosophy and Education. 1 

1. The problem of the metaphysics of education. 

2. The interrelation of philosophy and education. 

3. The connecting principle of philosophy and 

education. 

(a) The real in philosophy and education is 
the rational 

(b) The organic and theistic unity 

(c) The unity of the categories schematized. 

4. The specific relations of philosophy and ed- 

ucation. 

(a) Philosophers and their relation to educa- 
tion 

(b) The parallelism of education and phil- 
osophy 

(c) Educational theory grounded in phil- 
osophy 

II. The Philosophical Significance and Im- 

plications OF 
(a) Educational Facts and (b) Basal Con- 
cepts in Education 41 

1. Teaching and Learning 41 

1. Mind 44 

2. Study and the Recitation 50 

2. Meaning 54 

3. School Managment 56 

3. Idea 57 



4. The Problem of Method 58 

4. Experience 61 

5. Universal Education 63 

5. Evolution 64 

6. The School 67 

^ 6. Law 68 

-^7. Theory and Practice 70 

7. Principle 72 

8. The Curriculum 73 

8. Interaction 74 

9. The Sciences 77 

9. Thought 78 

10. Educational Aims 80 

10. Purpose 82 

11. Teacher and Pupil 84 

11. Personality 85 

12. Art Education 87 

12. Aesthetical 89 

13. Moral Education 90 

13. Ethical 91 

14. Social Education 95 

14. Social 97 

III. An Educational Interpretation of Meta- 
physics 102 

1. The groups of philosophical thought 

(a) The Numerical Group 102 

(b) The Material Group 108 

(c) The Psychological Group 114 

(d) The Epistemological Group 119 

(/) The Ethical Group 122 

(g) The Theological Group 127 

(h) The Modern Group 130 

(i) The Absolute Group 140 

2. The principles of each philosophical system. 

3. The educational value of each system of phil- 

osophy. 



The Metaphysics of Education. 

I. 

THE RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND 
EDUCATION. 

The problem of the metaphysics of education is 
to discover the underlying, unitary principle of na- 
ture and mind, and to indicate how this universal 
reason reveals and realizes itself through processes 
of philosophy and education. That there is an im- 
manent reason in the world connecting mind and 
matter is the presupposition of both philosophy and 
education. Since philosophy and education are man- 
ifestations and activities of this unitary principle, 
they have a common function of aiding the individ- 
ual to realize his true worth and destiny. As man 
is free only when he is thinking, philosophy early 
became a means of self-realization and education 
drew its life and inspiration from philosophical 
sources. If truth is attained by thinking, and think- 
ing is a means of self-realization, then education must 
be philosophical and philosophy must be educational. 

Modern education is dominated and influenced in 
both theory and practice by some philosophical mode 
of thought. Both evolution and teleology have per- 
meated educational procedure and have given us the 
principle of becoming or development, and the principle 
of purpose or aim in life. Since metaphysics is a philos- 
ophy of the real, a metaphysics of education should 

I 



2 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

keep close to palpitating reality. In other words, 
our philosophy which is to interpret and explain educa- 
tion should be grounded not in the molecular move- 
ments of physical things but in the unitary and eter- 
nal principle of the world. Philosophy determines 
what this principle is, how it is related to mankind 
and the world, and education applies the principles 
to the practical problems of life. 

All philosophy and education are based upon expe- 
rience and a complete theory of experience would be 
a real philosophy of education. It is the task of 
philosophy to deepen, to expound and interpret expe- 
rience and amid the manifoldness of appearances 
to seek a final unity or world-whole. Reason demands 
a primal cause of the world and a fundamental prin- 
ciple upon which to base all educational theory and 
practice. Instead of thinking by the old category 
of substance, the educator now thinks by the new 
category of self-activity. Self-activity which car- 
ries its primal impulse in its own bosom, explains not 
only substance and the Kantian Ding-an-sich but 
also the fundamental principle of all educational 
work. It is one thing to have an ultimate principle in 
education but a better thing to trace this principle 
back to its primal source from which it comes and 
through which it acts; namely, "The Infinite and 
Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." 

We find this self-active principle in the possible 
and actual of Aristotle, in the monads of Leibnitz, 
in the phenomenon and noumenon of Kant, in the 
ego and non ego in Fichte, in the will of Schopenhauer, 
in the idea of Hegel and in the inner connection of 
Froebel. According to modern science as well as 
philosophy we are taught what is, is activity and that 
activity gradually develops into higher and higher 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 3 

forms until it becomes self-active and self-deter- 
mined. From the activity of the inorganic world we 
pass to the activity of plant and animal life, into the 
self-activity of man and finally reaching the supreme 
activity of the absolute. Modern educational theory 
is usually based on neural action and has no relation 
to the all-embracing, eternal principle of the world, and 
has not, therefore, the permanence and continuity that 
is found in an idealistic doctrine. It is possible to 
relate the actual concrete processes in the school to 
an eternal reason, for that principle of existence 
always manifests itself in some objective process in 
the physical, civil, social or intellectual world. 
The essence which represents this absolute unity 
must be personal, and, therefore, the activities of 
the school room have a connection with the world 
grounding principle. Philosophy apprehends this 
principle as an original self-conscious unity which 
is the eternal and primal cause of all things. The 
Ionic thinkers called these principles water, fire 
and air; Anaxagoras, nous; Schopenhauer, will; 
Hegel, idea; and Lotze, Absolute Personality. 
These are different expressions for the ground of all 
unity, the root of all being, the condition of all con- 
sciousness and the foundation of all education. 
While it is true that the finite mind cannot 
completely understand the infinite, yet in this sys- 
tem of thought the educator is able to orient him- 
self and understand the stream of influences pour- 
ing in upon him from the original source of things. 

The educator may ask. Of what value is monistic 
idealism to me if I cannot understand the one and 
cannot know it is spiritual? The eternal reason of 
the world is what it reveals itself to be and is much 
more than we can understand it to be. However, 



4 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

we see this universal reason manifested in the world 
of appearance and if we could not interpret the outer 
order of tilings it would be the despair and negation of 
all thought. If my life and my thought enter the 
all-embracing life and thought of the world it is to me 
no ^ unknowable thing-in-itself but is rich in the pos- 
sibilities and actualities of a living, throbbing exis- 
tence. 

According to Kant metaphysics is the science 
which advances from the knowledge of the sensible 
to the knowledge of the super-sensible by means of 
reason. According to the educator we go from the 
concrete to the abstract, and it is as educational as 
philosophical to say that thoughts without contents 
are empty and intuitions without concepts are blind. 
It is as necessary to make our concepts sensuous 
as to make our intuitions intelligible. Both of these 
propositions are wrong, pedagogically speaking, and 
neither can exchange the function of the other for 
the understanding cannot see, neither can the senses 
think. In all thinking, scientific interest must cul- 
minate in philosophic interest, and philosophy must 
have a unitary conception of the world. The Kantian , 
philosophy teaches us to apprehend the world and 
all its products as appearances, and sets forth the 
doctrine that ultimate reality is unknowable. 

In his introduction to the Logik, Hegel says "that 
his philosophy does not in the least neglect empirical 
facts contained in the several sciences but recognizes 
and adopts them ; it appreciates and applies towards 
its own structure the universal element in these 
sciences, their laws and classifications; but besides 
all this, into the categories of science it introduces 
and gives currency to other categories." From this 
statement it will be seen that Hegel began in 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 5 

experience and said that the task of philosophy was 
to trace in nature, in the human mind, in social in- 
stitutions, in history, and in religion an Immanent 
Reason. Hegel starts with the assumption of all 
science that existence and intelligence are one and 
that the mind can know the real which is the 
rational. According to Dr. Caird the human mind 
can know the real because man as a spiritual being 
can find himself in that universal thought and reason 
which permeates nature. Hegel himself says that 
human reason and divine reason are not absolutely 
different and hence human reason is able to com- 
prehend its otherness in the divine. 

Herbert Spencer in his Sociology supplements this 
same thought by saying "the final outcome of that 
speculation commenced by primitive man is that 
Power manifested throughout the universe distin- 
guished as material, is the same Power which in our- 
selves wells up in the form of consciousness." Phil- 
osophy assents to this statement and declares that 
nature and spirit are stages in the evolution of an 
immanent and universal reason which pervades all 
existence, physical, intellectual, moral and educational. 
The Absolute, therefore, is not something border- 
ing on the realm of dreams, but is the indwelling and 
informing life of the world and makes possible all 
physical, all conscious and all educational processes. 
Since the world movement culminates in man. Pro- 
fessor Laurie says, "there is a point at which the 
immanent universal will emerges out of self- 
consciousness and constitutes man." The whole 
world movement exists for man and the aim of man 
is self-realization or perfection. 

In studying nature and education science deals 
with facts, but the scientist does not understand how 



6 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

impossible it is for human thinking to stop at the 
scientifically known without pressing on to a study of 
the interrelation and connection of things. It is the 
aim of science to measure not to value, to discover 
not to explain, but it is the purpose of philosophy to 
explain and rationalize the world. The science of 
education cannot explain the personal relationship 
existing between things and beings, but merely di- 
vides part from part without taking into considera- 
tion their ground and connection. Dr. William Wal- 
lace says "the sword of the analyst smites asunder 
the unitary chords which binds the world together." 
The philosophy of education determines the last 
ground and ultimate principle of education and calls 
it spirit. Philosophy arranges the broken designs 
of nature and education and brings out the organic 
meaning of the whole. The science of education 
deals with efficient causes while philosophy of educa- 
tion discusses the final cause or supreme purpose of 
the educational process. 

The metaphysics of education deals with a world- 
connection and education-connection and calls it 
an immanent spirit. Man as spirit is raised above the 
facts of nature and the facts of education and is ca- 
pable of looking into the higher order of things and as- 
certaining that power and principle which bind him 
to the world as a whole. On account of the compre- 
hension of experience, Herbart viewed philosophy as 
science and he might have added until science grows 
philosophical it remains a mere bureau of registration. 
Metaphysics springs out of a scientific endeavor 
to know the most universal paths of world-connec- 
tion. The metaphysics of education is possible only 
upon the homogeneity of the world, physical, mental, 
social and religious. Metaphysics rests upon ex- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 7 

perience and moves toward a world unity and all phil- 
osophy of education must also rest upon the actual 
concrete facts of education and move toward that 
spiritual unity which is the source and origin of every 
process in education. Metaphysics is a science, the 
queen of all sciences, and differs from the other sci- 
ences not in its method but in its universality. It 
seeks the real in the world and the real in education 
and, therefore, attempts to relate the cosmic process 
to the educational process through a supreme real- 
ity. The science of nature and the science of spirit 
have their origin in one science, for all truth is ulti- 
mately one. Monism is a necessity of thought for the 
human spirit which is a unity demands that unity in 
the world which spiritual monism implies and we are, 
therefore, led to a spiritualistic theory of reality. The in- 
dividual is at heart spritual, the school is an organic spir- 
itual unity, and all education consists in mind estrange- 
ing itself from itself and cancelling this estrangement 
returning to itself enriched, realized and completed. 
The unity amid all the complexities of education is the 
unity of ideas or the unity of the thinking self. The 
master impulse of modern thought is a desire for some 
kind of unity, not the physical atheism of the Ionics, 
nor the monism of Haeckel,nor the substance of Spin- 
oza but an absolute spirit which is the self-existent 
principle of all things. The most rational supposi- 
tion possible is a spiritual substratum, for it is impos- 
sible to conceive the soul save as a realization of spirit- 
ual potence and such realization must be rooted in an 
immanent spiritual principle as its world ground. 
Scientific monism makes the psychical depend upon 
the physical and in its ignorance of epistemology 
makes matter rather than mind ultimate. In mak- 
ing mind depend upon matter rather than create it, 



8 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

as idealism would do, it destroys its own monism 
which it seeks to establish. Such a philosophy fails 
to learn that man knows all he does only in and 
through consciousness and that his knowledge moves 
always within the spheres of human thoughts and 
human ideas. The atoms, forces and energy of a 
scientific monism must be replaced by the absolute 
of a spiritualistic monism, for Dr. Ward has clearly 
shown that a mechanical system of the universe is 
impossible. 

^ According to Busse it is the absolute which is ac- 
tive around us and within us, in our inner life as in all 
other essences but whose workings rise not all up into 
our consciousness. Mental activity and activity 
in education are within us and have no meaning ex- 
cept the presupposition of theistic idealism. A met- 
aphysical interpretation of education should give us 
a conception of the world in which subject and ob- 
ject, mind and matter, present a unity and in this 
unity we have an explanation for the outer order of 
things. Such a unity philosophy is constantly seek- 
ing and explains the world not from a scientific stand- 
point but from the point of view of a necessary world 
unity. 

The theistic unity of the world of thought and the 
world of things is one in which a relative indepen- 
dence of the self and of the world is maintained and 
at the same time an effort is made to unify and com- 
bine them into an organic whole. The unity of the 
world must be a unity like that of our individual life 
which is a unity of a consciously realized end and pur- 
pose. As the universe must be intelligible to thought, 
as it is the revelation of reason, so education is con- 
stitutive and interpretative of an ultimate reality. 
Both the ultimate reality of the universe and the 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 9 

ultimate reality of education are thought, for ideal- 
ism affirms that reality is spiritual in essence. The 
absolute life enters our life, the absolute ideals become 
our ideals; and the absolute reason and consciousness 
are constitutive of our finite reason and self-con- 
sciousness. The universe in its core and essence is 
spiritual, for that which is manifested in the world 
and in education is a spiritual activity. The spirit- 
ual principle presupposed in knowledge and made 
manifest in nature, and the principle from which both 
are derived are world elements involving both nature 
and education. 

The human mind is constantly seeking the real in 
the world, in humanity, in education, in society and 
in the state and when this real is attained and deter- 
mined it turns out to be spiritual, for the universe is 
ultimately grounded in reason and based on rational 
thought.! The fundamental real of the world is an 
archetypal ideal which has its home in the mind of the 
absolute. The physically real and the educationally 
real are manifestations of the spiritually ideal. The 
eternal laws and principles of reason, whereby the 
ideal passes into the real are all grounded in the uni- 
versal reason. The world of real things is not a world 
of mere things but of things that are to us an expres- 
sion of the ideal mind. Since the days of Kant we have 
bfeen taught that the mind does not simply copy the 
world, but makes nature of its own constitution. 
To know the absolute which permeates all the ac- 
tivities of the world, both physical and educational, 
is to attain a knowledge which is knowledge by every 
law of thought and every principle of fundamental rea- 
son. Such a philosophy is theistic idealism because it 
traces matter to spirit and because it makes spirit 
that medium through which alone created matter is 



10 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

known by us. Such an idealism is theistic as it pre- 
serves the relative separateness and distinctness of 
things which are manifested in the external world and 
in every process of education. The principle of in- 
teraction between teacher and pupil and between 
pupil and curriculum is made possible by a spirit- 
ualistic monism. Both nature and education are 
manifestations and expressions of the cosmic mind. 
They cannot be understood without thought 
and reason, and what can only be so under- 
stood must itself be reason and thought. The fund- 
amental reality of the world is spirit, personal spirit, 
for the personal alone is necessary to the solution of 
the philosophical and educational problem. It is the 
purpose of a metaphysics of education to trace this 
personal spirit down through the world and through 
education and thus show the interrelation of phil- 
osophical thought to educational principles and 
practices. 

Both philosophy and education ask the questions: 
What can I know? What should I do? and What 
may I hope? The first question is speculative, and, 
therefore, philosophical and hence educational, but 
cannot be answered by psychology and neurology. 
The second question is practical and moral and ac- 
cording to some thinkers the supreme purpose of all 
educational work. The third question is practical, 
theoretical and speculative and, therefore, has an 
educational significance. In regard to the first in- 
quiry Kant says there are two stems of human knowl- 
edge, which spring from a common root unknown to us; 
namely, sensibility and understanding: objects being 
given by the former and thought by the latter. 
Knowledge gained by experience is a posteriori but 
general truths which bear the stamp of inward ne- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 11 

cessity are called knowledge a priori. The analytical 
judgments which are merely illustrative are not so 
valuable in gaining knowledge as the synthetic or 
expanding judgment, for in the former nothing is 
added by the predicate to the subject. 

Education, and especially mathematics, are not 
possible unless space and time are made subjective. 
These are purely metaphysical questions and have 
a deep interrelation with the processes of education. 
Space and time are a species of stained glass through 
which the soul looks in gaining knowledge. If space 
is empirical, discursive and not a priori then there is 
no self-evident certainty of geometrical principles. 
Again if time is discursive, empirical and not a pri- 
ori then arithmetic is not possible. According to Kant 
time and space are two sources of knowledge and 
we have an illustration of the interconnection of phil- 
osophy and education. 

Another example of the relation of philosophy and 
education is a study of the categories which have a 
profound philosophical significance and at the same 
time a practical application to the most elementary 
problems of education. Aristotle made them ob- 
jective; Kant, subjective; and Hegel maintained that 
the laws of thinking are the laws of being. Kant 
calls them, "the original concept of synthesis which be- 
longs to the understanding a priori and for which a- 
lone it is called pure understanding; for it is by them 
alone that it can understand something in the mani- 
fold of intuition, that is, think an object in it." The 
categories are the immanent principles underlying 
articulate experience and make knowledge and ex- 
perience possible. They lie in the understanding, 
form the frame work of thought and give form to 
all experience acquired. 



12 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

The mind works according to these principles and 
reaches knowledge only through them. Locke claimed 
that all knowledge is obtained through experience ; 
Hume reduced experience to impressions; Kant 
showed that if experience is to become articulate it is 
by means of the organizing activity of the mind, ac- 
cording to principles immanent in the understanding. 
When Kant says that the understanding makes 
nature he does not mean that he creates the cosmic 
reality, for that exists in its own right. The nature 
which Kant's understanding made is epistemological. 
The mind can build up a world of knowledge be- 
cause the pattern is implicit in the mind, and nature 
in this sense is the product of our own thought. It 
is by means of the laws of nature immanent in us that 
a knowledge of objective nature can possibly arise. 

The schematism of the categories is a philosophical 
question but has an interrelation to education and 
to the process of learning. To schematize is to make 
the object and concept homogeneous. "The em- 
pirical concept of a plate is homogeneous with the 
pure geometrical concept of a circle, the roundness 
which is conceived in the first forming an object of 
intuition in the latter." The schema of the concep- 
tion of 100 is the thought of a process of synthesis by 
which we combine 10 groups of 10 units into 100 and 
the schematism of the conception of 100 is the pro- 
cess by which it is done. The schema relates to us 
and not to the 100, and the succession not in the ob- 
ject but in the act of comprehension. 

Since time is homogeneous with the category and 
homogeneous with the phenomenon, it is selected as 
the chief element of the schema. The categories 
schematized connect the understanding with the ob- 
jective world. According to Kant the categories 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 13 

must be schematized to represent an object but ac- 
cording to Hegel the objective categories of the thing 
parallel the subiective catea:ories of thinking:. 

Philosophy grasps the universal el-ements in human 
knowledge and discusses the connections between the 
various phenomena of the world. It is impossible to 
teach the different departments of knowledge scien- 
tifically without showing their relation to each other 
and without an insight into their organic unity. It 
is as true as it is trite to say that to understand one 
subject thoroughly many other subjects must be known 
and, therefore, philosophy is an absolute necessity in 
the educational process. There is a difference be- 
tween a forced correlation in education and the unity, 
the scientific and philosophic impulse strives to attain. 
Science, philosophy and education are constantly 
searching for the unity in the world and to produce in 
thought that systematic order, harmony and unity 
which exists in things. When education seeks for 
the unitary principle of the world it becomes phil- 
osophical. In finding reason, rational coherence, 
connection and system in things, education fulfills 
the secret stimulus of intelligence and the desire for 
knowledge. The most fundamental principle in edu- 
cation is that in nature, in man, in spirit, in all ob- 
jects there is no dualism nor gap which thought can- 
not bridge, and hence philosophy which aims at a 
unitary knowledge of the world is the most valuable 
of all educational subjects. Philosophical education 
seeks to unify the isolated sciences and to give ex- 
plicit insight into the continuity of the world and 
tries to ascertain that causal relation which binds 
things together. 

Evolution and idealism have given organic unity 
to the world and have taught us that there is a unity 



14 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

of principle underlying all diversity of things. The 
unity of the world which these two modes of thought 
give us is not an aggregation, but a process in which 
the lowest step prophesies all the succeeding steps and 
as Aristotle would say, the end to be attained pre- 
supposes, comprehends and justifies all that precedes 
it. Evolution and idealism explain the true nature 
of the world and show that there are no leaps nor gaps 
in existence but con,tinuity, coherence, intelligence, 
succession and law... A true education must teach 
us that the lower class of relations points to the higher 
and the higher gives a deeper explanation of the lower. 
The educational process gradually leads us from a 
knowledge of nature and life to a knowledge of a think- 
ing mind which thinks both. Philosophy gives education 
the underlying principle of the world and knits all ex- 
istence into one coherent relationship. However, 
there are some thinkers who would entirely ignore 
metaphysics, who would begin with facts and end 
with facts and who would make ideas a product 
of nature, and mind a function of matter. But it is 
impossible to build up a world of experience without 
ideas and thoughts for in thinking matter which is 
supposed to function as mind we presuppose mind 
and become metaphysicians in spite of ourselves. A 
fact of observation is not a bare fact, a fact minus 
mind, but a fact to an observing mind, a fact sur- 
charged with thought and having the spiritual an 
element inseparable from it. 

The teacher constantly uses the terms, law, force, 
matter, unity, identity, difference, cause, effect, sub- 
stance, properties, and other metaphysical terms and 
philosophizes in teaching many subjects. In teach- 
ing cause and effect in geography, likeness and differ- 
ence in grammar, and substance and attribute in 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 15 

many subjects the teacher unconsciously thinks in 
philosophical nomenclature. The teacher usually 
protests against using any metaphysical speculation 
and abhors philosophy as nature does a vacuum and 
at the same time in his teaching in the grades of the 
public school, he cannot teach five minutes without 
using some metaphysical term. He discusses the 
cause of day and night, the change of the seasons, 
the properties of objects or action and reaction in 
physical phenomenon. He may think he is scien- 
tific and protest against any philosophical speculation 
but when he uses the terms, cause, change, properties 
and action he is dealing with purely metaphysical prob- 
lems. 

In nature study the teacher speaks of the qualities 
of the specimens, the growth of the plant and the na- 
ture of an object and he must be taught by philosophy 
to realize that these elements of knowledge taught in 
the grades cannot be thoroughly understood unless he 
studies, "the first principles" of metaphysics. A 
child and indeed some teachers and thinkers will say 
that the nature of a thing is found in its sense-qual- 
ities. According to Descartes the attribute expresses 
the essence of a thing and tells what it is ; according to 
Colonel Parker an attribute is an energy working 
through matter. Bradley says that the nature of a 
thing is its qualities and that the unity of whiteness, 
sweetness and hardness constitute sugar. But in fact 
the nature of a thing is not found in its qualities but in 
the dynamism, law or principle which determines the 
form and character of its activity. Whatever may be 
the nature of a thing, whether it be quality or law, 
the thing that appears in our mind is a mind thing and 
we, therefore, conclude that the thought of a thing 
harmonizes most intimately with its law. Plato makes 



16 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

the nature of a thing the idea in which the thing par- 
ticipates. Aristotle makes an advance upon the Pla- 
tonic theory and says the nature of a thing is its pur- 
pose or end. Purpose expresses the nature of a thing 
because it is the norm according to which the thing 
is made and it, therefore, becomes the determining 
activity of the thing. To understand the nature of 
objects used even by the children in the kindergarten 
and in the elementary grades we pass, from common 
sense through science to philosophy. / fd\ knowledge 
begins in experience, except the laws and unities of 
science but finds the true unity in the hidden rela- 
tions, laws and principles of metaphysics. Philosophy 
seeks the permanent amid the variable and strives to 
ascertain the unifying principle which co-ordinates the 
multiplicity of things, and attains a knowledge of 
reality only upon the presupposition of a thinking 
Self. We connect things and facts together in an or- 
derly system by means of the synthetic principle which 
the educator must know if his processes are to be ra- 
tional. 

That philosophy and education are organically re- 
lated is proved by the fact that the real in education 
is the real in philosophy and the real in the world. 
This reality which binds all existence into a unity 
is a thinkable reality and is one capable of entering 
into thought. The thought which is in education, 
in philosophy and in all things is not a thought that 
we create but which we discover and which is indepen- 
dent of us but which at the same time our intelligence 
is able to grasp. Both education and philosophy 
start with the presupposition that the world is intel- 
ligible and that there is reason or thought in things 
and that science, philosophy and education are striv- 
ing, each in its special sphere, to discover this ration- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 17 

ality. In studying the inner meaning of a school and 
of education we see they are dominated by reason and 
intelligence and are, therefore, organically related 
with the eternal reason that rules the world. 

What the educational philosopher finds as the unity 
of the world is not something foreign to mind but 
something essentially rational and something that re- 
veals the world to an observing mind and by annulling 
the estrangement brings mind back to itself. A met- 
aphysics of education depends upon the fact that 
we see our better selves in nature, in the school and the 
social world. The natural laws which show that 
things belong together and which link objects into an 
ordered system and which bind individuals together 
in the school and which makes teaching organic, are 
rational relations and are not foreign to the mind it- 
self. 

If nature is shot through with reason how much 
more is the school, teaching and education pierced by 
these spiritual balls, for in these educational and so- 
cial relations the individual can only attain his true 
worth by associating with other individuals of similar 
rationality. Education studied philosophically rests 
upon the presupposition of the unity of knowing and 
being, of the thinking mind and the thing to be 
learned. In fact we cannot think much less teach unless 
we imply a consciousness which is the unity of thought 
and thing and, therefore, the educational process can 
best be explained by some form of idealism. 

It is difficult to understand that kind of unity which 
belongs to spiritual things which organizes education 
and unites the human soul with the outer world in the 
process of knowing. It is not a unity of juxtaposition, 
nor aggregation, nor succession but it is a unity of 
elements which internally involve each other and 



18 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

which can be apprehended only by the deeper insight 
of philosophical speculation. Education should be 
studied from the philosophical view point because the 
ultimate principles of education cannot be known by 
science or ordinary thought but belong to the domain 
of philosophical inquiry. We have said that the 
school is a spiritual organism and that education is 
based upon the theory that mind and nature are not 
two independent things but are two members of one 
organic whole. If nature, language and literature 
were not essentially related to mind, knowledge would 
be impossible for thought could find nothing in the ob- 
jective world which it could grasp and make it its own. 
Since the objective order is rational, and since uni- 
versal reason exists in the world, then the objective 
order yields itself up to intelligence and knowledge and 
education become possible. It is philosophy that 
teaches us that nature is a reflection of mind and that 
mind finds itself in nature. It is the purpose of a meta- 
physics of education to show that mind, nature and 
the absolute belong to one organic system of knowl- 
edge and that in knowing one we are led to an under- 
standing of the other two. Such a study shows the 
deeper relation between mind and nature, between 
mind and the eternal reason, and connects the pro- 
cesses of education with the processes of the world. 

Having discussed the general relationship between 
philosophy and education, the more scientific rela- 
tions will be studied in order to show how education 
grows out of philosophy and how educational systems 
and methods have been modified and influenced by 
philosophical thinking. In its original significance, 
philosophy is a striving after wisdom and education 
early took on to itself a similar meaning which was 
to know what is. However, some thinkers thought 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 19 

it more rational to study the practical conduct of life, 
and education then took on an ethical significance. 
In his thinking the philosopher developed many 
lines of human inquiry and created a real curriculum 
for the direction and development of the individual. 
Early education grew out of the primitive philosophy 
and religion; religion afforded a guidance of life and 
a general view of reality; philosophy, Windelband says, 
is to ground, defend and develop dogma. From 
religion, education obtained the doctrine of divine rev- 
elation and from philosophy, the doctrine of human 
knowledge and human conduct. As the philosopher 
became more free in his thinking and more indepen- 
dent of the church, he acted more independently in 
the solution of the problem which was common to 
both religion and philosophy. 

Philosophy first presented and defended the the- 
sis of religion, then criticized it and lastly became in- 
dependent of it and explained the nature of things 
by human experience, thought and reason. As the 
subject matter of philosophy has changed so the sub- 
ject matter of education, which is to perpetuate phil- 
osophy, has been modifed and adapted to meet the 
needs of growing life. It was the function of phil- 
osophy to attain a scientific insight into the nature 
of the world and human life and education has gathered 
from philosophy the rich sheaves of thought which 
has modified and developed human life. The foun- 
dation of philosophy was shaken by Kant who attempt- 
ed to show that a metaphysical knowledge of the 
world is impossible and that the only function of 
philosophy is a critical consideration of reason. 
Philosophy gradually became a universal science and 
education took on to itself the scientific impulse. 
Philosophy accepts the truths of science and attempts 



20 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

to explain what science merely describes. Phil- 
osophy is not merely related to the sciences but to 
the religious, ethical, social, aesthetical and educa- 
tional activities of life. Education gathers these many 
threads of thought into its curriculum and builds up 
a theory and practice of education based largely up- 
on problems of philosophical inquiry. 

The educational thought of each nation has grown 
parallel with its philosophy. The philosophy of 
India has not only controlled her education but has 
molded her life and thought and determined in a 
measure her religion and worship. The Brahmins 
philosophically introduced the law of causality into 
the spiritual world and made each transmigration 
of the soul the result of a previous state of life. The 
deed in the preceding life determines the present life 
of the Indian, and Karma (deed, law, fact,) gov- 
erns transmigration and is the key to their life. It 
will thus be seen that Indian education is dominated 
by philosophy and that salvation is through education. 
The philosophical teaching of the Swami still ed- 
ucates the people and education is thus seen to be 
the perpetuation of philosophy. 

The dictum of the Buddhist is not what must we 
do to be saved but what must we do to be absorbed. 
According to Buddhism nothingness is the principle 
of all things ; all things come from nothingness and all 
things pass into nothingness. The pedagogical signifi- 
cance of this philosophy is, man must seek to assimulate 
himself to this principle by doing nothing, wishing noth- 
ing and desiring nothing. For the Buddhist self-reali- 
zation is to free one's self from activity. Their educa- 
tion is highly colored by their philosophy and to under- 
stand their education, we must study their philosophy. 
The chief interests of the Buddhist philosophy are, 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 21 

its eternal system of retribution or Karma, its in- 
stincts for the avoidance of evil, its rejection of a 
super-phenomenal ego, its belief in moral causation 
and its hope to rob evil of all power here and here- 
after by molding life and character through educa- 
tion. 

Hebrew philosophy is a synonym for Hebrew ed- 
ucation. It fact Jewish philosophy is a philosophy 
of wisdom, human wisdom applied to human con- 
duct and divine wisdom which is the principle of the 
harmony of the world. Their education was based 
on the Torah or law and was moral, religious, prac- 
tical but not scientific. Their philosophy was more 
universal than their education but their education 
is older than their philosophy. Jewish philosophy 
was not grounded in the phenomenon of nature but 
rather in the phenomena of society. Both their ed- 
ucation and philosophy are ethical and religious and 
both hold their body in low esteem. The aim of their 
education was wisdom and the aim of their philoso- 
phy was to make the world of nature a robe of glory, 
a servant of Jehovah and subject to his command. 
The one principle object of Jewish life was moral and 
religious training, and the one great conclusion of 
the whole matter was to "Fear God and keep his com- 
mandments: for this is the whole duty of man." 

The Sophists, especially Protagoras, Gorgias, Hip- 
pias and Prodicus, were a group of philosophers who 
were at the same time teachers. These men car- 
ried their philosophy from school into public life and 
taught the people what they had learned, partly out 
of the noble impulse to teach their fellow citizens and 
partly for pay and for honor. Their logic was a logic 
of opinion rather than a logic of truth ; they put em- 
phasis upon perception and taught that all truth is rel- 



22 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

ative. In ethics they declared that man is the meas- 
ure of all things and that right is a matter of individ- 
ual opinion. The Sophists rejected the theoret- 
ical and emphasized the practical in politics, elo- 
quence and ethics. They taught everything that 
was known at their time, politics, rhetoric, grammar, 
mathematics, etymology, geography, history and eth- 
ics. Their method of teaching was conversational 
and they shifted education from the scholar to the 
citizen. In general we may say that the Sophistic 
philosophy was the Sophistic curriculum and their 
chief interest was in humanity rather than in nature. 
The Sophists gave their attention chiefly to the 
analysis of the feelings and impulses which lie at the 
basis of action and were interested in questions of 
justice. They were teachers when Greece needed 
teachers and taught truth not for truth's sake but 
for the sake of action and conduct. 

When Thales declared that water was the essence 
of being, man began to think. His thought was 
seeking the thought of all things ; thought was in search 
of itself. In Socrates thought finds itself as the im- 
manent creative principle of all existence. What 
Thales implicitly sought Socrates explicitly stated. 
Socrates showed mankind how to extract the con- 
cept or universal of an object out of the fleeting no- 
tion. His basic maxim was both philosophical and 
educational: Know Thyself. In thought the think- 
er recognizes the self knowing ego as the creative 
principle of the objective world. Snider says, "The 
self knowing itself sees this process of self-knowledge 
to be the process of all things." The self-knowing 
ego had been announced by the Sophists but Soc- 
rates proclaims that this ego knows itself as object, 
the principle of the world in which man is to find 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 23 

himself. The world is thought which his thought 
must recognize in order to obtain true knowledge. 
In terms of Anaxagoras his nous must recreate the 
all creating nous by thinking it. The maxim to 
Know Thyself means to know thyself as man, hu- 
manity, universal, not an introspective act but an 
extrospective look at the creative soul of the world 
whose process is truth itself. Socrates perfected the 
saying man is not simply man as the measure of 
things hut man as thinker, as the maker of concepts, 
is the measure of all things. Having reached the 
general concept by induction he applied it to human 
conduct. 

His method of teaching was catechetical, conver- 
sational, inductive, illustrative, giving thoughts uni- 
versal validity. The Socratic irony was a keen edged 
sword which he used effectively in all his teaching. 
Socrates said it was unreasonable to quiz things di- 
vine before we understood things human. He did 
not study nature but human nature and is said to 
have brought philosophy down from the clouds to 
dwell among men. According to Socrates virtue is 
knowledge and if we know the right we will do the 
right as no one intentionally does wrong. The teach- 
er-philosopher taught his philosophy, lived his phil- 
osophy and died for his philosophy. He had great 
influence upon the methods of teaching and his 
maieutic art is still practiced by teachers all over the 
world. His philosophy was a philosophy of educa- 
tion and put the teaching process upon a rational 
basis. The aim of his philosophy and education was 
to develop in the individual the power of forming 
universals which was accomplished through the dia- 
lectical process. Philosophically speaking dialectic 
is the process of formulating general notions from 



24 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

particular notions. From the educational stand- 
point the dialectic is the conversational method sys- 
tematized and rationalized and is the method by 
which knowledge, truth and the universal are 
attained. From the psychological point of view 
the dialectic is the formation of concepts from per- 
cepts. The aim of education to Socrates was to de- 
velop a knowledge of practical life having universal 
validity. 

Plato agreeing with Socrates that a new bond of 
moral life should be organized, worked out the prob- 
lem of institutional life. This new bond was to be in 
ideas and intelligence which united men into an or- 
ganic unity. According to his epistemology knowl- 
edge consists in ideas not in objects, in universal 
rather than in concrete conceptions. For Plato the 
idea is the veritable essence, the true reality, the 
original life-giving form. The realities are arranged 
in a series of goods until the uitimate good is attained. 
The good of all existence realizes its function by 
harmonizing with the originating idea. Since knowl- 
edge is the harmony between the idea and the phe- 
nomenon, the aim of education is to develop this 
knowledge, this virtue, this good. Plato's idea of 
education excelled that of Socrates by making: knowl- 
edge the basis of moral life through the philosophers 
who are to be the rulers of society. 

The philosophers know the highest good and so- 
ciety must be so organized that the lovers of wisdom 
shall control the republic. Plato organized society 
upon a psychological basis and added a system of 
education to correspond with each civic activity. 
The function of the state correspond to the faculties 
of the mind. Education has for its purpose the dis- 
covery and development of the qualifications of the 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 25 

individuals in each class, and provides for the 
fullest development of personality in and through 
the social whole. The power is in the hand of the 
philosophers who live in the realm of divine ideas, 
but who are mundane enough to become teachers 
and absolute rulers of the people. His education con- 
sists of gymnastics for the body and music for the 
soul. The educational scheme of Plato was Utopian, 
was the product of an ideal philosopher but is the 
basis of all modern discussion upon the social phases 
of education. The Republic is the embodiment of 
reason and the ideal through which the highest good 
is attained . Since the philosophers are closely united 
with practical life, we have an example of philosophy 
not only determining education, but guiding and con- 
trolling the life of a people. The philosopher is the 
free man, who knows and appreciates truth, who de- 
votes his life to the contemplation of truth and the 
government of society. 

The idea of education in The Republic is nurture 
and the human soul is considered a living essence sub- 
ject to development and guidance through education. 
The philosophic spirit cannot exist in its fulness and 
integrity without involving all that is good and noble 
in human character. The philosopher who lives in 
fellowship with the good and orderly grows himself 
to be orderly and divine. In the unchangeable order 
and beauty of the universe he sees that universal rea- 
son which is reflected in himself. The dominant im- 
pulse of the philosopher is the impulse to know the 
truth and to know the reason and to see them as con- 
vergent parts of one organic whole. The scheme for 
the education of the philosopher was an emphasis upon 
philosophical inquiry, intellectual activity and the 
contemplation of the good. Plato thought that his 



26 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

scheme of education would secure happiness for all 
by placing every individual into the class to which he 
belongs by nature. It gives every individual citizen 
a free expression of his nature connected with the 
well-being of the whole. 

The following quotations fom The Republic 
show the relations between philosophy and educa- 
tion : 

1. The beginning is the chief est part of the work in 

a young and tender thing. 

2. The direction in which education starts a man 
will determine his future life. 

3. Those who see the absolute, the eternal and im- 
mutable may be said to know. 

4. Philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal 
and unchangeable. 

5. The knowledge of the Good aims at the eternal 
and not the perishing. 

6. It (dialectic) raises the eye of the soul to the uni- 
versal light which lightens all things and 
beholds the Absolute Good. 

Aristotle had a greater influence upon phil- 
osophy and education than any man ancient or 
modern. In searching for truth instead of using the 
Platonic dialect, he substituted the method of in- 
duction and became the father of all true science. 
The principle of induction which has had such a 
great influence upon education was used by Aristotle 
in every field of research. According to his principle 
of induction the divine intelligence reveals itself ob- 
jectively and subjectively, and truth is the harmony 
of the two. The divine is not only the immanent idea 
in nature and in mind but is the transcendent mind 
also. 

A great wealth of education sprang out of the philos- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 27 

ophy of Aristotle. He formulated logic with its syl- 
logisms, premises and conclusions. His theory of 
judgment is still studied in schools and his figures 
of the syllogism are a permanent contribution to 
knowledge. As a result of his fertile mind we are 
still discussing the potential and actual, the individ- 
ual and universal, form amd matter, deduction and 
induction, concept and definition, purpose, cause, 
principle, energy, maxim, motive, faculty, habit, 
mean, extreme and the categories. He has given to 
the world of thought logic, politics, poetics, phys- 
iology, mechanics, [physics, metaphysics and ethics. 
He agreed with Plato that politics has for its function 
to produce the greatest good to mankind and that 
education is the preparation of the citizen for the 
good life. Aristotle maintains that ideas have no 
independent reality but exist as forms in objects. 
Plato sought the good in the individual consciousness, 
while Aristotle sought it in the race consciousness, 
and made happiness the goal of all human endeavor. 
He distinguished between the well-being or the good- 
ness of the intellect and well-doing or the goodness 
of action. He does not believe with Plato that vir- 
tue is knowledge but thinks that virtue is the func- 
tioning of knowledge. 

The method of Aristotle was objective and scien- 
tific; he sought truth in the objective fact of nature, 
of social life and of the soul. He said we must see the 
difference between reasoning down from first prin- 
ciples and reasoning up to first principles. He further 
says that man is a political animal and that the high- 
est good can be realized only in the state. His ideal 
conception of education is gymnastics for the body, 
music and literature to develop the moral nature and 
science and philosophy to develop the rational part 



28 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

of the soul. Music is valuable as it affords relaxation, 
intellectual enjoyment and has a high moral value. 

The following quotations from the Politics of 
Aristotle show the relation between philosophy 
and education. 

1. A liberal education is a preparation for citizen- 
ship wherein all citizens are ruled and rulers. 

2. The end of the state is the happiness of the in- 
dividual. 

3. Virtue and good order of the state depend upon 

the virtue and good order of the individual. 

4. Education is public, for all and for the good of all. 

5. Education is made the business of the state. 
Since Plato and Aristotle have had such wide in- 
fluence upon education, and since their systems of 
philosophy and education are so closely related a com- 
parison will show more fully their intimate relation- 
ship. Plato awakened the philosophic impulse ; Aris- 
totle, the scientific spirit; Plato recognized the crea- 
tive activity of consciousness; Aristotle said true real- 
ity is at heart activity; for Plato, ideas participate 
in things; for Aristotle, ideas are immanent in things; 
according to Plato ideas are patterns of things; accord- 
ing to Aristotle the being of a thing has its reality in 
its realization; Plato, the soul is divided into reason, 
spirit and appetite; Aristotle, the soul is divided into 
vegetative, animal and rational; Plato claimed the 
immortality of the soul; Aristotle claimed that the 
soul is the entelechy of the body; Plato, wisdom, cour- 
age and moderation correspond to the three-fold di- 
vision of the soul; Aristotle, changes in nature are 
mechanical, chemical and organic. Both worked out 
the relation of the individual to the social whole and 
both made the state the basis of education ; both were 
creative thinkers and made the trained individual the 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 29 

social individual; both used the doctrine of plasticity 
and made the final purpose of life the attainment of 
The Good. 

Monasticism and its fundamental principle, as- 
ceticism, were modes of religious and educational life 
and have a philosophical and educational significance. 
The ideals of monasticism were chastity, poverty and 
obedience and its function was moral and religious 
development. The seven liberal arts, grammar, rhet- 
oric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music and as- 
tronomy had their origin in monasticism. Intimately 
connected with monasticism is that doctrine of life 
which strives to attain the perfection of the soul, spir- 
itual satisfaction, and is known as mysticism. Speak- 
ing philosophically mysticism has been defined as the 
filling of the consciousness with content and attempts 
to understand the ultimate nature of things. Mys- 
ticism was coeval with Neo-Platonism and was form- 
ulated by Plotinus after he had made a thorough study 
of Plato and Aristotle. His philosophy embraced 
what is known as the Seven Realms: God, Cosmic, 
mind, the soul, reason, vitality and matter. The 
Plotinic philosophy is religious, ethical and practical 
and has for its end the contemplative life. Since the 
soul is impassible its nature is not changed by living 
in the flesh but some of its impediments to growth 
and development are anger, cupidity, gluttony, intem- 
perance and avarice. Some of the goods to be attained 
by the soul are just habits, temperance, modesty, 
calmness and divinity of mind. For Plotinus ecstatic 
unity with deity is a higher mental activity than 
ratiocination. He is passionately fond of the beau- 
tiful because it is the image of the divine. It has been 
beautifully said of him, that "for constructive power, 
inspiring skill, daring boldness, sustained nobility 



30 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

and imposing beauty, the philosophy of Plotinus has 
never been excelled." The education growing out of 
this philosophy puts emphasis upon the super-civic 
part of man and its whole purpose was to lead man- 
kind to the One. 

Mysticism and scholasticism supplement each other 
but the aim of the latter is to bring reason to the sup- 
port of faith. While scholasticism was largely the- 
ological and philosophical, its educational aim was to 
systematize knowledge and give it a scientific form. 
That ideas, concepts and universals constituted the 
only reality was accepted by the schoolmen and called 
realism. In opposition to this metaphysical doc- 
trine, nomalism taught that ideals or universals are 
merely names and that reality is found only in the ob- 
ject. This scholasticism deals with the abstract and im- 
material, is a union of theology and philosophy, uses 
logical analysis and stimulates intellectual interests. 
It developed an acuteness of thought, a subtlety of 
reason and led ultimately to the organization of uni- 
versities. Humanistic education opposed scholas- 
ticism, favored physics rather than metaphysics and 
would teach Roman and Greek literature in order to 
ascertain what is best in humanity. Humanism not 
only presented the life of the ancients but also took an 
interest in aesthetic problems and the problems of 
nature; it put little stress on the social activity but 
emphasized the linguistic side of education. 

Sense Realism has both a philosophical and educa- 
tional bearing and teaches that knowledge comes 
primarily through the senses and that education is 
chiefly sense training. The realist claims that ed- 
ucation is a natural process and that its principles are 
derived from nature. They taught that the idea should 
come before the form and the object before the word. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 31 

Francis Bacon in his New Organon believed he could 
point out new paths in science and knowledge and 
could improve upon the old Aristotelian Organon. 
He taught that the method of induction was the only 
correct method of studying facts. According to Aris- 
totle causes are formal, efficient, material and final. 
Bacon studied only the formal causes for he thought 
that all that takes place has its ground in the form of 
things. Induction searches for the form of phenomena 
which is its abiding essence. It was his idea that dis- 
cussion should turn from the conception of things, 
back to the things themselves. He claimed that 
knowledge is power and would apply the principle 
of induction to all study. Bacon's philosophy gave 
education new tendencies and new ideas which have 
influenced education, established laboratories and 
put the study of science upon an experimental basis. 
The Baconian induction has revolutionized educa- 
tion by causing geography, physics, chemistry, zo- 
ology and other sciences to be taught by beginning 
with concrete facts and moving toward general con- 
ceptions and laws. In grammar we begin with lan- 
guage and derive rules and principles ; and in arithme- 
tic we begin with problems and derive rules. 

John Locke was both a philosopher and educator; 
he wrote an Essay On the Human Understanding 
and Thoughts Concerning Education. Based upon 
the Baconian philosophy, he worked out his theory 
of empiricism that all knowledge comes from sensa- 
tion and reflection. He considered the human mind 
a tabula rasa and that development is a process of 
disciplining the mind through study, reflection and 
meditation. He says a sound mind in a sound body 
is a short but full description of a happy state in this 
world, that the all-important thing is the formation 



32 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

of correct habits and that the business of education 
is not to make mathematicians but reasonable crea- 
tures. Locke may be considered the founder of the 
naturalistic movement in education which culminated 
in Rousseau. Both believed in a sound body, in sense 
training, in nature, rather than in books, in the doc- 
trine of moral consequences and in reason rather in 
authority. 

Rousseau believed that all growth in education 
and all refinement in life had made man untrue to 
himself. In the opening sentence in Emile he says, 
everything is good as it comes from the hand of the 
author of nature; everything degenerates in the hand 
of man. If the historical process has led man into 
wrong paths, he must return from his intellectual pride 
to his simple natural state of feeling and education 
should allow the natural endowment of the individ- 
ual to unfold without restraint. Education is a nat- 
ural process, is based on natural instincts and inter- 
ests, is not information but development from with- 
in, and is life rather than a preparation for life. 
Since it is a process, it is not confined to school but to 
the whole gamut of life. His doctrine is a species of 
sensationalism; he advised geography to be studied 
in the woods and fields, and botany to be learned from 
plants. Pestalozzi's idea of object lessons grew out 
of the naturalism of Rousseau and has permanently 
influenced methods of teaching and education in gener- 
al. 

It has been proved again that education grew out 
ot metaphysics and has developed parallel with 
philosophy. It is also true that modern educational 
theory and practice is grounded in some philosophical 
thought and that educational procedure is directed by 
some philosophical doctrine. It will not be necessary 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 33 

to discuss all the philsophers who have influenced 
education, as that would be an endless task, but it 
will be necessary to study types of philosophical think- 
ers such as Hegel, Herbart and Froebel. 

The Hegelian doctrine teaches that all that is real 
is rational and that the world is a manifestation of 
spirit or mind. He would say that the laws of thought 
are the laws of things and that the secret of mind is 
the secret of the universe. By means of the dia- 
lectical method Hegel determined the essential na- 
ture of phenomena by the significance which these 
phenomena have, as moments in the unfolding of 
spirit. To comprehend the world as the evolution of 
the divine mind was the task of Hegel. The thesis, 
antithesis and synthesis belong to the nature of mind 
and to the nature of reality which unfolds itself from 
mind. In his logic he treats being, essence and con- 
ception; in nature, mechanics, physics and organics; 
in the philosoph}^ of spirit, the individual subjective 
spirit, the objective spirit in morality the state and 
history; and the absolute spirit, art and religion. 
In commenting upon this system Falckenberg says, 
"The absolute or logical idea exists first as a system 
of ante-mundane concepts, then it descends into the 
unconscious sphere of nature, awakens to self-con- 
sciousness in man, realizes its content in social in- 
stitutions, in order, finally, in art, in religion, and in 
science to return to itself enriched and completed." 

According to the Hegelian conception the school 
is an organic spiritual unity. The spiritual unifying 
principle of the school is a subtle force which not only 
knits teacher and pupil together but has the power 
of transforming ths natural pupil into an ideal being. 
There is an activity in and through the pupil which 
transmutes him into the realm of law, order and rea- 



34 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

son, which is his true and better self. The school ex- 
hibits spirit as a process of working out through the 
teacher and subject matter all the potentiality slum- 
bering in the child. The explanation of the school 
and of all educational processes rest upon the solid 
rock foundation of cosmic philosophy. The school 
may be organized out of the spirit of the teacher and 
the spirit of the pupil, unified and organized by the 
spirit of the world. As all cosmic processes are the 
manifestation of reason, so are all school processes a 
form of some mental activity in the interpretation 
and application of this reason. As all forms of na- 
ture were created by the eternal principle of reason, so 
are the outer forms of the school derived from this 
same immanent principle. Neither the school nor 
the world is material nor mechanical, but both are 
rational and spiritual. Education is essentially 
philosophical since it is a study of thought revealed 
in the universe. Rosenkranz teaches that all education 
is estrangement and removal. Mind has the power 
of apprehending itself in its otherness and bringing 
back to itself what was once estranged. This mind 
is first absorbed in the objective world, then per- 
meates the world of art and discovers that universal 
principle which it identifies as its other and true 
self. In school, in art, in nature, the mind discov- 
ers its own essence, penetrates into its own being and 
identifies its own law in what seems to be an alien 
existence. 

The doctrine of method is one with the doctrine of 
philosophy; it show^s the relation of the objective 
world to the subjective world. It is a law of the hu- 
man mind that it parallels in its function the law of 
the universe. In other words, method may be de- 
fined as a real activity of the subject to be studied, 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 35 

made to harmonize with an ideal activity of a mind 
to be developed. It is based upon the thought in the 
thing which is the universal reason manifested in the 
outer world, and the law in the mind which is the ac- 
tivity or force transmuting ideas and thoughts of sub- 
ject-matter into the living energy of mind. Sub- 
jective method is the activity by which the mind 
grasps the facts of history, geography and other sub- 
jects and makes them a part of its own essence. 

The fundamental principle of the educational pro- 
cess and the abiding reality of the world grew out of 
a common eternal reason which is the substratum of 
all thought and all things, and is the basis of all civil, 
social, religious and educational activity. In order 
to give education a deep significance, its principles 
must be grounded in a world order and its education- 
al method based on a world movement. Unless the 
law of the world harmonizes with the law of the school 
and the law of teaching, knowledge is impossible and 
education has no foundation upon which to build its 
superstructure. Furthermore, unless the world is a 
rational world, science and thinking are impossible, 
for in order to have thought there must be a thinker 
behind the world and a thinker who is to comprehend 
the thought in the world. Since there is a common 
element in mind and nature, in zoology and in the in- 
dividual, then education becomes a rational process, 
and mind is able to find itself both in the outer order 
and in the inner order. If the world be knowable, if 
zoology and botany are possible, then nature in a sense 
is realized mind and the mind finds itself in the order 
of nature. The meaning of the world series becomes 
knowledge in the thought series and education be- 
comes a process of the mind building into its own con- 
tent the significance and meaning of the outer world. 



36 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

Hegel has given us one of the best interpretations 
of education by taking it out of the domain of the 
mechanical, empirical and physiological and making 
it a spiritual process. He shows that the eternal 
energy permeating the world manifests itself in nature 
and in mind and gives us the key for the explanation 
of the educational process. 

Herbart makes the task of philosophy a study of 
the conceptions of experience by relating the reals. 
These reals are simple, unchangeable and unknow- 
able and the ground which determines all qualities 
and attributes. The relation between reals is not 
essential to either but is the origin of things and their 
relations. The coexistence of the reals is that from 
which consciousness is reduced. These reals recipro- 
cally disturb each other and cause an inner reactionary 
disturbance known as self-preservation. Self-preserva- 
tion is the process by which the unknown real main- 
tains its integrity against other reals and thus form- 
ing ideas. Herbart would say we do not know any- 
thing about the soul as substance but we do know the 
soul as a system of self-preservations. In Herbartian 
metaphysics the soul may be defined as a reciprocal 
tension of ideas. Consciousness depends upon the 
degree of intensity and the lowest degree of this ten- 
sion, in which ideas still exist, is called the threshold 
of consciousness. If ideas are pressed below the thres- 
hold of consciousness, they are called impulses. Her- 
bart's psychology is metaphysical and has been de- 
scribed as a mathematical theory of the mechanism 
of ideas. He lays great stress upon the assimilation 
of new ideas by means of old ideas already present 
and calls the process apperception. 

Herbart's contribution to education is first, the 
application of psychology to education; second, the 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 37 

emphasis upon the doctrine of apperception; and 
third, his many-sided interest. He considers the 
soul a unity whose primary elements are "presen- 
tations" and whose interaction leads to concept, judg- 
ment and reasoning. These presentations are con- 
trolled by the teacher who gathers them from nature 
and society. The two chief characteristics of Her- 
bart's educational theory are the apperceptive power 
of mind, and the presentations are to be determined 
by the teacher. He must select the materials of 
instruction in accordance with the principle of co-or- 
dination and correlation and make the ultimate pur- 
pose of education ethical. 

The history of education proves that there has been 
an intrinsic relationship between philosophy and ed- 
ucation, not merely in ancient times, during the or- 
igin of the educational concept, but in modern times 
during the recent formulation of educational theory. 
Herbart's educational doctrine is based upon his met- 
aphysical theory. Apperception or the assimilation 
of new ideas by means of old ideas, is fundamental 
in his system, because it leads to action and action 
develops character. Herbartsays: The one and the 
whole work of education may be summed up in the 
concept, morality. **The Aesthetic Presentation of 
the Universe as the Chief Aim of Education" is per- 
haps the best treatise written upon the relation be- 
tween philosophy and education. This book teaches 
that moral character may be analyzed into inner 
freedom, efficiency, benevolence, justice and equity 
and each element has its social counterpart. 
Moral character is developed by educational instruc- 
tion and the character of the material is important 
in the Herbartian educational doctrine. Some would 
make literature the most important in the devel- 



38 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

opment of character ; others, history : and still others, 
science. 

In order to realize this aim in education a many- 
sidedness of interest is necessary. An individual is 
interested (inter esse) when he sees the subject is be- 
tween his present real self and his future ideal self. 
For Herbart, interest is a mental activity which ac- 
companies apperception. His method of teaching is 
not based so much upon the character of the material 
as upon the activity, interest and development of con- 
sciousness. The five formal steps are the means by 
which the end, character, is attained. The truth is, 
the formal steps mechanizes the mind and is not in 
harmony with the real process of teaching and learn- 
ing. It may be a convenient mode of analysis of in- 
struction, but it would perhaps be better to say there 
are just two factors in the educational process, the 
thinking mind and the thing to be thought. 

Inner unity, inner development and inner connec- 
tion, the trinity of Froebel's spirit, were the under- 
lying principles of his life and philosophy and the 
fundamental truths of his educational doctrine. The 
whole idealistic movement in philosophy attempts to 
unify the world and human life and teaches the worth 
of the individual, moral and spiritual culture, the or- 
ganic conception of society, the self-determining ac- 
tivity of the individual, the world a manifestation of 
a spiritual principle and the organic unity of nature, 
mind and the Absolute. Whatever originality we 
may give to Froebel in his doctrine of education, we 
must keep in mind the fact that his underlying prin- 
ciples were derived from the preceding systems of 
philosophy. He had the ability to appropriate, dis- 
cern and organize the fundamental ideas of the phil- 
osophy, literature and science of his day into a new 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 39 

conception of education. We can understand the ed- 
ucational theory of Froebel and in fact the educational 
theories of all thinkers only by knowing their phil- 
osophy, for we take it for granted that an education- 
al doctrine has no validity unless it is grounded in 
philosophy. His philosophical principle is organic uni- 
ty, which is eternal and world comprehensive. It is 
inherent in his very constitution of mind, and caused 
him to unify things and organize the manifold forms 
of existence into a unitary conception. The great 
thinkers of the world have been unifiers and Kant, 
the prince of thinkers and unifiers, believed that man's 
world is what he constructs it to be in his own con- 
sciousness, and the only nature he understands is the 
nature he builds up in his own intelligence. 

Froebel looks upon both nature and the human 
spirit as manifestations of an eternal principle which 
has its origin in the Absolute. It is the special func- 
tion of man as a rational being, to become fully con- 
scious of the divine effulgence in him, and to work 
out his own educational freedom through his own 
self-activity. He believed the soul is self-acting and 
self-determining because it is one with the self-acting 
and self-determining things of the world. He says that 
nature develops by inner laws and that these inner 
laws have a teleological significance. He applies 
this principle to both natural and spiritual processes, 
to the plant, the individual, society and education 
and the creator whose method is operative in the 
world. 

The educational problem of Froebel is to adjust 
the individual to the larger social life in which he lives. 
In order to do this, it is necessary to know man's 
place in the world and know the relation between the 
human process and the cosmic process. In order to 



40 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

solve this problem we must understand that human 
life and education are possible and intelligible only 
on the assumption that both the self and the world 
have their origin and development in the persistent 
purpose of one universal spiritual principle. Only 
on the basis of such a kinship is it possible to render 
an account of the education of the human individual. 
According to this principle, reality is an organic 
spiritual unity and education is based upon the fact 
that there is a vital relationship between the activi- 
ties of the individual and the activities of the outer 
world. In the opening sentence of the Education of 
Man Froebel says, "In all things there lives and 
reigns an eternal law." This law is the controlling 
factor in education, in life, and causes us to imitate 
the eternal ideal through our own self-activity and 
self-determination. It should be the function of 
education to make the external internal and the 
internal external in and through a principle resident 
in both. Froebel tells us that the only aim of education 
is to nurse the divinity in us, and to see that we are relat- 
ed to the world through a common bond of connection. 
It is the final purpose of man to understand the inner 
connection of things and relate this inner unity in 
nature to the inner development of man. In speak- 
ing of his law of development he says, "I see the simple 
course of development progressing from analysis to 
synthesis which I find in pure thought and which I 
consider the type and law of all development." In- 
ner unity, inner connection and self-activity are fund- 
amental, philosophical and educational principles 
and lie at the basis of any rational theory of educa- 
tion. 



11. 

PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE 

and IMPLICATIONS of 

(a) EDUCATIONAL FACTS and (6) 

BASAL CONCEPTS IN EDUCATION, 

By appealing to experience we learn that a 
number of marks or characteristics in education 
come together ' and we, therefore, decide that they 
intrinsically belong together. We further find by 
such an inductive study that there are many coin- 
cidents of these marks in educational facts and we 
conclude that they form a fixed group which belong 
together since they so often come together. These 
basal concepts which unify the facts of education are 
themselves marks of a deeper unity to be found not 
only in education but also in the world itself. An induc- 
tive study will first be made of the educational facts 
in order to ascertain to what fundamental concepts 
such an investigation may lead and lastly, these 
basal concepts will be studied to find out what uni- 
tary principle they depend upon. 

(1) TEACHING and LEARNING: 

By the actual observation of the activities of the 
school, a process of teaching and a process of learn- 
ing are found to exist in interrelation. It is the func- 
tion of teaching to present conditions for growth and 
development. Teaching is a process of causing the 
pupil to know the object by bringing it into unity 

41 



42 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

with the subject or by causing the subject to be real- 
ized in and through the object. In teaching litera- 
ture or hivStory there is a fusion of the mind of the pu- 
pil with the thought of the lesson to the end of mental 
and moral growth. In Emersonian terms there is no 
teaching until the pupil is brought into the same 
state of thought as the teacher and the subject mat- 
ter of the lesson to be learned. Whatever is the 
thought of the teacher or the thought of the lesson 
may become transfused into the life of the pupil by a 
process of teaching. Teaching is a process of build- 
ing into the mind of the pupil the thought and spirit 
of the world. In teaching we notice that the teach- 
er's mind is directed to the mind of the pupil, while 
the pupil's mind is directed to the thought of the les- 
son. The teacher in teaching history must know both 
the nature of history and the movement of the mind 
in tracing the history process. The teacher in teach- 
ing history or any other subject must resolve it into 
its mental processes and must understand clearly how 
these spiritual elements are to become a part of the 
mind. 

We observe that teaching and intelligence come to- 
gether we, therefore, conclude that they belong to- 
gether and that this belonging together is not a chance 
conjunction of experience but a rational connection. 
Many things in teaching occur together, as the noise 
of the street car or the whiteness of the school room, 
but there is no inner connection or fixed order of be- 
longing together. Since teaching and mind are al- 
ways associated together in the same connection we 
decide there is a causal relationship existing between 
them and the presence of one factor always implies 
the presence of the other. 

The starting point in this thesis is the particular 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 43 

educational facts, and none are more self-evident than 
learning or "get your lessons." There are at least 
four types of learning activity: chance learning, learn- 
ing by trial and error, learning by imitation and re- 
flective learning. Chance learning is an adaptation to 
some accidental performance and is really a random 
response. The child's activities bring about new and 
useful reactions and he is said to learn. In learning 
by trial and error the form of reaction is blind. While 
there was no aim in chance learning, there is present 
by learning by trial and error a definite purpose to be 
realized. We do not know how to solve the problem, 
however, but the end is reached through selective con- 
sciousness. In learning by imitation the idea, habit 
or model must be present for the individual to copy. 
The imitation will be in proportion to the def inite- 
ness of the model. Social life is really the basis or 
model of all imitation. Imitation plays a great part 
in learning and right models of physical, mental and 
moral habits should be kept constantly before the stu- 
dent. The fourth type of learning is by means of 
reflection. In trial and error and in imitation we may 
try and try again but in reflection we analyze the sit- 
uation and ascertain the thought to be obtained. 

In reflective learning the mind identifies itself with 
the thought and spirit of the world other than itself. 
It is a constant process of striving after the truth of 
nature and points to the unity of the world. The 
movement of the mind in teaching a subject is in- 
timately related to the mind in learning it. The 
teacher in teaching follows the thought of the pupil 
while the pupil in learning follows the thought of the 
lesson. To learn a thing is to transmute the thought 
in the thing into the thinking mind. The child learns 
the lesson in history by transforming the thought, 



44 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

feeling and volition of the lesson into his own spiritual 
nature. Learning presupposes an intelligence at both 
ends of the series; and intelligence in the lesson and 
an intelligence in the individual learning the lesson. 
It involves a knowable world, a knowing mind and an 
identification of the thought of the world with human 
thought. Learning takes for granted that there is an 
immanent reason in the world and that there is intel- 
ligence in human beings which can grasp this reason. 
We notice a repeated coincidence of intelligence 
and learning and we, therefore, infer that they belong 
together in a rational way. The radiators and eras- 
ers are usually seen in connection with the learning 
process but since there is no causal relation or sequence 
existing between them, they do not rationally belong 
together. The connections must not be accidental 
conjunctions, but must have a rational relationship. 
To know what things are for, and how they are brought 
together, we must appeal to the mind which is the fi- 
nal principle in education. Since intelligence is a mark 
or characteristic of learning and is found wherever 
learning exists we are inevitably led to the conclusion 
of a mental unity of teaching, learning and intelli- 
gence and that a further analysis will reveal some 
spiritual energy underlying not only these principles 
but the world itself. So closely connected are these 
three elements of education that they all seem to have 
a common origin. Their uniformity seems to indicate 
that the mind of man, the processes of education and 
the course of nature have a common genesis. 

(1) MIND: 

We have found by observation and explanation that 
both teaching and learning inevitably lead to a mind 
principle for their origin. This intelligence must fur- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 45 

ther be studied in the concrete situations of education 
in order to ascertain to what final principle it owes its 
origin. It is impossible to conceive of a teacher, pupil 
or school without taking into consideration the mind 
for which the whole scheme is organized. By observ- 
ing the prime importance which intelligence plays in 
educational work, we conclude that it is the chief edu- 
cational category. 

The teacher deals in the actual school with both the 
physical and mental child. It is not the aim of edu- 
cation to make a better animal out of the child so 
much as to make a better moral and spiritual being. 
However, the teacher deals with both sides of the 
child's nature but does not understand the relation- 
ship between body and mind. This concrete illustra- 
tion leads us to the Cartesian conception of mind 
which distinguishes consciousness from matter, or the 
thinking thing, res cogitans, from the extended thing, 
res extensa. There is a sharp demarkation between 
mind and matter and neither is supposed to have any 
functional relation with the other. In this connec- 
tion Tyndall says, The passage from the physics of 
the learner to the corresponding facts of conscious- 
ness is unthinkable. Huxley says, I never hope to 
know anything of the steps from the molecular move- 
ment to the states of consciousness. Neither of these 
great scientists is able to solve the problem of the re- 
lation of mind to body. However, the teacher deals 
with both phases of life and should know something 
at least of their interaction. The occasionalist would 
unify mind and body to the intervention of deity. 
In other words the relation between mind and body 
is controlled by the supreme being. Since this theory 
was not satisfactory, Liebnitz tried to solve the prob- 
lem by the doctrine of pre-established harmony. 



46 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

Modern psycho-physical parallelism has expressed 
this connection by saying the relation between sen- 
sation and perception is as the logarithm of the stim- 
ulus. 

In making an inductive study of the mind we will 
next discuss the functional view which makes think- 
ing a form of activity which we perform to attain cer- 
tain ends. When a child desires something he per- 
forms certain activities in order to obtain it. The 
mind is in and through its activities and is what it is 
because of the many functional relations in which it 
has been found. The child perceives when it is neces- 
sary to perceive and reflects when an occasion demands 
reflection. The reflective process arises from specific 
relations and serves specific purposes. The functional 
view of the mind teaches that experience is dynamic, a 
process, active, and that activity is the self in function- 
al relation to its environments. According to this view 
of the mind the curriculum should be made up of those 
responses which will be most useful in life. 

These explanations and views of the mind do not 
get at what is essential in its nature; namely, the abid- 
ing, thinking, unitary self. By observation we might 
think with Hume that the mind is made up of units 
of sensation, feeling and impression. But the truth 
is it is impossible to build up mind by associating im- 
pressions and thereby forming judments, for to judge 
implies unity and identity of the thinking self and 
some connection between thought itself. If we had 
two states of consciousness, ink and black, we cannot 
form a judgment unless we have an abiding self which 
is neither ink nor black, but which embraces both in 
the unity of its nature. Since the thinking self is 
necessary in the formation of a judgment, we conclude 
that all impressions or states of consciousness to mean 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 47 

anything to intelligence, must be due to the constitu- 
tive, organizing, classifying, unitary self. These con- 
clusions destroy Locke's tabula rasa, for there is no 
mental substance upon which impressions are to be 
stamped. If we accept the maxim that , "Every psy- 
chosis has its neurosis," we are led to materialism which 
in another form would say that the mind secretes 
thought as the liver secretes bile. This theory is un- 
tenable as we have proved that learning and educat- 
ing are spiritual processes. 

The self is another name for the mind and is the pre- 
supposition of every process in education. It is the 
bearer of experience, it does not have activity bjut is 
activity, it knows things, it apprehends facts, it con- 
nects objects, and holds them together and is what 
Browning calls, "what knows, what does, what is." 
It is the abode of ideas and purposes and the subject 
of all conscious experience. By studying the child's 
activities we may analyze the self into a knowing self, 
a doing self and a social self. These are the con- 
stituent elements of a "person" who is a conscious 
subject capable of distinguishing himself from what 
he knows and the ends which he attains. The self 
is not substance but activity in doing, thinking and 
feeling. By analyzing the world and analyzing the 
self we come to the conclusion that they are terminal 
aspects of a unitary process. The idea of self in- 
cludes a consciousness of the not-self, and every living 
individual is related to every other individual 
through some principle which binds mankind into 
a unit. 

Professor Royce states that the self is the conscious 
and intentional fulfilment of the divine purpose. 
The self plans experiences but realizes its true na- 
ture only in God ; the self experiences what the divine 



48 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

plan indicates. Thomas Hill Green makes the self- 
conditioning and self-distinguishing consciousness a 
form of the eternal consciousness. He says that this 
divine eternal spirit contains all the human spirit may 
become. According to Green spirit is self-distinguish- 
ing, self-combining and self -objectifying. It con- 
ceives phenomena under the categories of unity, like- 
ness, difference, etc, and when it reflects upon its own 
nature it employs the same categories. According to 
this metaphysical doctrine, self-conscious personality 
is based upon supreme personality. Green says that 
our conception of an order of nature and the relations 
which form that order, have a common spiritual 
source. 

He would further have us believe that nature is a 
system of related appearances and related appearances 
are impossible without the action of intelligence. 
The organizing principle of the world is, therefore, the 
unifying, self-distinguishing, combining self, and Kant 
is correct in saying that the understanding makes na- 
ture. The individual self is but the manifestation of 
the eternal self and the cosmical and educational unity 
is thus attained. The essential nature of education, 
teaching, learning and the mind itself can be traced 
to their ultimate source, in the eternal consciousness. 
We do not posit an immanent universal mind but by 
careful analysis and induction of the activities of 
teaching, learning and mind, we are inevitably led to 
that conclusion. The absolute spirit is the most fund- 
amental principle in education for it unites all the 
educational forces and factors into one living whole. 
The child's mind which is taught history, grammar 
and arithmetic in school may be gradually traced 
back until we arrive at this supreme principle of phil- 
osophy and education. A metaphysics of education 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 49 

is possible only by deriving an unitary world principle 
which unites subject and object, mind and body into 
one organic whole. Every process in education, teach- 
ing, learning and mind activity has its source in the 
Eternal Reason which is the underlying substratum of 
all existence. Professor Paulsen tells us that phys- 
ical processes are always accompanied by psychical 
processes and wherever you find matter, you find 
some form of mind. According to a leading scientist 
the tiny cell is an embodied bit of mind. He says, 
"The life of a cell consists solely of its mental activi- 
ties." We are brought by the force of such argument 
to the conclusion that every process in the world and 
every process in education have for their sustaining 
activity the immanent universal mind from which all 
things have their source. 

We can only reach an adequate idea of the self 
or soul by connecting it with the primal ground out of 
which it originates. The primal ground of the self, 
the world and education is the self-activity of the ab- 
solute. This activity changing from potence to actu- 
ality constitutes the ground of all things and since 
this outgo is accomplished by evolution rather than 
creation, the self gradually passes from mechanism, 
instinct and impulse to the highest form of spiritual 
activity. The movement of the soul's activity cor- 
responds to the movement of the absolute spirit but 
never so completely realized. The vital principle which 
we find in vegetable life cannot be called soul but we 
are led to believe that unitary force which determines 
existence of organic life is the same spiritual potence 
which is manifested in soul-energy. We may study 
plant life and the lower form of animal life and also 
human life, but we cannot conceive how through nat- 
uralistic evolution the soul or self is originated unless 
it is grounded in a spiritual activity. 



50 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

No metaphysics of education is possible unless the 
facts of education can be traced to some eternal source 
which has its origin in the spiritual energy of the ab- 
solute. In teaching and learning, the self is changed 
from potence to actuality and the supreme purpose of 
all educational work is to quicken the spirit. Since 
the nature of the human spirit is identical with the 
nature of the eternal spirit, and since, as Miss Calkins 
indicates, the human spirit sees, hears, thinks, then 
the divine spirit must have these same attributes. 
Education tries to bridge the gap of existence be- 
tween the human and divine and shows the unity and 
continuity of the world. A metaphysics of education 
ought to vshow the rational relationship among all 
educational facts and trace the varied and complex 
activities of the school back to first principles. Such 
a unitary view of education should give the teacher re- 
newed interests in the concrete duties of his work by 
relating the activities of the school to activities of the 
world. 

(2) STUDY AND THE RECITATION 

In observing a school, two of the principal facts of 
education are the study period and the recitation 
period. In educational work we study in order that 
we may recite and the purpose of both study and the 
recitation is to grasp the meaning of the subject-matter 
in hand. In analyzing the study process we find that 
it is made up of several factors. No one studies un- 
less he has a purpose either immediate or remote, spe- 
cific or general. He may study to please the teacher, 
to excel in the recitation, or to attain some unrealized 
end which he has set up as his life's goal. To have a 
specific purpose in study is to add interest, to organize 
facts, and to provide for a practical out-come of the 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 51 

knowledge obtained. When a student studies a sub- 
ject, as geography or history, he notes what the author 
says and then supplements this out of the fund of his 
own knowledge and experience. To study is also to 
organize facts by some method of co-ordination and 
subordination. The real student soon learns that 
knowledge moves in groups, in plateaus, and not in 
isolated facts. The experimental studies of Bryan 
and Herter prove that the knowledge process is made 
up of peaks and valleys. 

Knowledge may be organized on a psychological 
basis — related to man, on a scientific basis — not related 
to man and on a logical basis — on the laws of thought. 
Such an organization leads to thoroughness and assists 
the student in distinguishing the important from the 
unimportant facts. Studying is a process of classify- 
ing and judging the relative value of subjects and also 
the ultimate or life values of facts acquired. By many 
to study is to memorize and memory is intimately re- 
lated to thinking. The problem of "Formal Disci- 
pline" may be solved by making memory a process of 
thinking and noting the thought relations connecting 
subject matter. Studying is a memorizing process 
plus the process of seeing relations. Another factor 
in study is the use of the ideas attained in practical, 
intellectual and social life. We must grasp the mean- 
ing of the subjects studied and make it a part of our 
functioning life and a mental habit. We may enu- 
merate another element in study and that is the 
tentative or scientific attitude toward knowledge. 
As much knowledge is not fixed, we should be slow to 
accept facts simply because they are printed in a book. 
Reason should be placed above authority and our at- 
titude should be to accept all reasonable knowledge 
and be open to illumination on all subjects. To study 



52 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

is to gain all the knowledge, meaning and significance 
possible, and then use our own individuality in sup- 
plementing what we have studied. 

The total function of studying is to obtain the 
meaning and unity of the world and to use this mean- 
ing in enlarging our lives. By a careful analysis of 
the study process we observe that study leads to 
meaning and meaning presupposes study. This rela- 
tionship is not a chance conjunction but a rational 
connection. These actual connections are noticed in 
the daily recitation and furthermore they not only 
come together but vary together. The more study 
the more meaning and the less study the less meaning 
seems to be the law of variation. Since meaning and 
study come together, vary together, they then logi- 
cally belong together and the inductive conclusion is 
that study inevitably leads to the meaning or sig- 
nificance of the thing studied. The regularity or fre- 
quency of coincidence of marks compel us to believe 
that there is some causal relationship or uniformity of 
sequence existing between the two factors. If study 
leads to meaning in history, meaning in literature and 
meaning in other subjects we conclude that it is the 
law of study to be followed by meaning. The canons 
of inductive thinking are agreement, difference, res- 
idues and concomitant variation. Our process of 
reasoning in regard to study and meaning uses the first 
and last canon in proof of the generalization that 
meaning follows study. Mills says that if two in- 
stances have one circumstance in common that cir- 
cumstance may be regarded as the cause. By ob- 
servation, by experiment and by hypothesis we no- 
tice that meaning is common to the lesson, common to 
study and the final purpose of both the recitation and 
study. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 53 

The recitation is an educational fact found in all 
school work and consists in the pupils restating the 
thought and meaning of the lesson to the class and 
the teacher. Studying in school work has for its 
aim, reciting the thought, meaning or significance to 
the class in such a way as to clinch the facts. In the 
recitation the teacher and pupils discuss the thoughts 
of the lesson and if some ideas are not clear the 
teacher assists in working out the true meaning of the 
subject studied. The purposes of the recitation are, 
to excite interest in study, to train in correct methods 
of study, to find out how much the pupil knows, to 
explain, to approve and criticize, and to stimulate and 
inspire pupils to higher ideals of life. A perfect re- 
citation is one in which the pupils grasp the meaning 
of the lesson in toto, and present it to the class in a 
beautiful and attractive manner. The recitation is 
the heart-beat of the school, as all the forces in the edu- 
cational system are centered in the recitation hour. 
The recitation to become a work ot art should be the 
free expression of the thought and meaning of the 
lesson by reducing to a minimum the mechanical 
phase of the school. For a recitation to be perfect 
and beautiful the spiritual forces should not be con- 
trolled by the mechanism but should move freely and 
in an inspiring manner. 

The thought and meaning with which the recitation 
deals are the molds which the mind makes of objec- 
tive existence. Unless the laws of thought are valid for 
the laws of things, knowledge and meaning are im- 
possible. Things do not make thought so much as 
the living, personal spirit makes things epistemologi- 
cally. Thought and things are identical in the sense 
of the contents of the thing being one with the thought 
of the thing. Human thought and the cosmic thing 



54 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

are rooted in a common unitary process, if thought can 
know things and hence the recitation which seeks 
the unity of the world is based on an ideaUstic monism. 
If the objective order to be known and interpreted 
does not have a nature similar to mind then the 
recitation has no function to perform. 

(2) Meaning: 

Organically related with the study period and rec- 
citation period is meaning or what the mind knows 
about things or what is transmuted into the mind 
from the printed page, painting or outer nature. 
In looking at the page, painting or scene of nature, 
there is first a sense impression, but meaning can be 
secured only through thought. This meaning which 
we get from literature, art and nature is built up in 
the mind and so the thing world has no meaning 
except what is constructed in the inner consciousness. 
Since the understanding makes nature the thing 
world is nothing more than a complex system of 
relations constructed by the mind. The world we 
know is the world of intelligence and the thing world 
is commensurable with the thought world and both 
are grounded in a universal reason. We arrive then 
by a study of the facts of meaning to the basic essence 
which unifies and organizes the multiplicity and com- 
plexity of objective existence into an organic whole. 
To illustrate the value of intelligence in education 
let us make a brief study of language and literature. 
The writer recently received a Hebrew letter which 
contained meaning and thought couched in a peculiar 
form of writing and which meant nothing although 
it was carefully observed by the senses. The in- 
telligence of the Hebrew put meaning into the hiero- 
glyphics, and what the senses failed to understand, 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 55 

the intellect of the interpreter made clear and plain 
the meaning contained therein. The Grand Opera, 
Aida, is merely sound to the dog or the savage, but 
becomes charged with intense meaning when in- 
terpreted by a cultivated musical mind. Language, 
literature and the Hebrew letter must have intelli- 
gence at both ends of the series, intelligence in the 
language and intelligence in the thinker who inter- 
prets the language. We notice that little meaning 
is found in the sense fact, but the larger meaning is 
found in the world of intelligence. If this inductive 
reasoning be correct we cannot interpret language 
unless there is a thinker in language and a thinker who 
thinks language. 

Knowledge which is intimately connected with 
study and meaning is an important factor in educa- 
tion. It is not something ready made which is put 
into a passive mind but is constructed in the mind by 
its own inherent energy. To know a thing is to grasp 
the meaning, to form its thoughts, to seize its contents 
and Kant is correct in saying all knowledge is due to 
the activity of mind; however, Kant's dualism of 
sense and understanding has been replaced by modern 
thinkers by a basal monism, for knowledge can have 
no validity unless it is based upon a theistic hypoth- 
esis. Free intelligence in the world (and free intelli- 
gence in the knower) is the only solution of the prob- 
lem of knowledge. Also the only solution of the 
problem of study and meaning is to assume a universal 
reason which is the connective bond between the 
world of thought and the world of reality. The 
finite subject and the cosmic object must find their 
unity in an absolute intelligence or will. Since the 
world is the thought of God made objective, a think- 
ing intelligence is able to grasp this thought so far as 
finite intelligence approaches infinite intelligence. 



56 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

Since meaning in school work implies retrospec- 
tively, study and the recitation, it also implies pro- 
spectively an intelligence in the objective order which 
is the all-embracing unity and identity of mentality 
and objective reality. In study we find meaning; 
in the recitation, we find meaning; in the world, we find 
meaning, in all things; we, therefore, conclude that 
intelligence is a mark of education and a mark of the 
eternal principle of the world and has its source in 
the supreme intelligence which is the foundation of all 
existence, physical and psychological. As these 
educational facts come together so frequently, the 
inference is drawn that they belong together and have 
a common genesis. The relation between meaning, 
study and the recitation is not a chance coincidence, 
not a mere conjunction of experience, but a rational 
"belonging together" which is a surplusage deter- 
mined by the mind itself. VVe also see that none of 
these have any validity unless they are grounded in 
a spiritual potence and, therefore, the actual concrete 
facts of education are controlled and given vitality 
by referring them to a Supreme Reason. 

(3) SCHOOL MANAGEMENT: 

School management is one of the essential elements 
in education and may be discussed from the authori- 
tative standpoint or from the self-governing plan or 
idea. According to the former method children are 
governed by external authority and are supposed 
to conform to rules laid down by superior persons in 
control. This method crushes the intellectual and 
moral life out of the children and is not in harmony 
with reason or the rational order of things. The true 
idea of school management is to change the pupil's 
caprice into rational order and cause him to realize 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 57 

that the school is the objectification of the eternal 
reason and that his actions are free when control 
arises within the individual and when his reason is 
made to harmonize with the reason of the school and 
the rationality of the world. The law and order of 
the school correspond to the rational order of the 
universe. The individual pupil loses his life in the 
school in order that he may gain the larger life found 
in education. The law of the school becomes the 
law of the pupil in and through the law of the world. 
The school is born in intelligence which is the deepest 
principle of nature and human nature and which is 
the unifying force in all school government. By 
means of school management the pupil is taught to 
unify his life with the life of eternal consciousness 
which is his other and better self. This plan of action 
or mode of procedure originates in the divine plan and 
when the pupil conforms to this divine order he real- 
izes his true worth and destiny. True management 
is self -management, and this can be realized only when 
the pupil understands that his nature and the ration- 
al order of the school are terminal aspects of the eter- 
nal reason and that when he harmonizes himself with 
the management of the school he is obeying his better 
nature. The pupil then responds to the inherent laws 
of his own nature, attains his highest perfection by 
having his life to throb with the universal life of the 
world. 

(3) Idea: 

If an idea is a plan of action(Royce), it is an organ- 
izing process, it synthesizes experience, it controls 
and molds facts, it guides life and it is the fundamental 
tendency to behavior. Education is a process of 
gaining ideas in history, literature and other subjects 



58 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

and transmitting them from generation to generation. 
Some ideas are so powerful that they take hold of us 
and possess us and fix the tenor of our educational, 
social and moral life. Ideas are living, growing, 
expanding and are brought to consciousness by 
thinking. They summarize experience, are dynamic, 
are the forms of conduct and are ideas only so far as 
they express themselves in fitting action. Plato used the 
term idea to express the real form of the intelligent 
world. The Cartesian idea is extended to objects of 
our consciousness. According to Locke an idea is 
what we get when we think an object. In thinking 
we deal in ideas and place them in rational sequence. 

Since ideas control, inspire and guide action and 
illuminate the path of life and are intimately related 
to school management, and since an idea looks to 
both the future and the past, it is prospective and 
retrospective. In order to make our ideas clear we 
think them over, put them under the law of definition 
and under the law of rational relations of things. 

In its deepest meaning an idea is the underlying 
principle of all things. In the Hegelian conception 
the world is an IDEA revealing itself in objectivity; 
it is the source and ground of all that is. The abso- 
lute idea is a form of self-consciousness and is the 
eternal reason of the world. Therefore, the ideas 
with which the teacher deals in the actual work of 
the school room, that are transmitted from generation 
to generation, and that are the controlling factors of 
school management, have their ultimate genesis 
in the self-conscious reason which in its terminal 
aspects may be called in this paragraph the guide to 
conduct and the plan to action. 

(4) THE PROBLEM of METHOD: 

In observing the method of teaching in different 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 59 

schools, some teachers lecture, some require the 
pupils to lecture and others use the Socratic, develop- 
ing or other methods. Some teachers think method 
a mere device, while others consider method as a 
real activity harmonizing with an ideal activity. 
According to this conception of method there is a 
law in the mind and a law in things and real method 
is a deUcate adjustment of the two. There is an 
objective method creating subject matter and a sub- 
jective method transmuting subject matter into 
mind. 

The Objective Method is the universal principle 
pervading all existence, producing all phases of ac- 
tivity and determining all forms of method. In 
studying the flora and fauna of a country we can 
determine experimentally that they have been pro- 
duced by different forms of activity. Method in 
botany investigates the activities of plant life, and 
method in zoology, the activities in animal life. 
The scientist and philosopher both tell us that what 
is, is activity and, therefore, method is a type of 
activity. There is a certain activity in the universe 
which produced Saturn's rings and another form of 
activity which created the rocks. Method in astron- 
omy intestigates the first form of activity and method 
in mineralogy studies the other form of activity. 
In studying "The Chambered Nautilus" we are 
tracing the activity of the mind of Holmes as he 
traces the natural activity in the nautilus and in 
studying the first steamboat we are tracing the mind 
of Fulton. Method in literature investigates the 
thought in the poem and method in history makes 
a study of the activities of The Clermont. 

The Subjective Method is the activity or force 
which transmutes the ideas and thoughts of the sub- 



60 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

ject studied into the thinking mind. The teacher 
must know the psychology of the subject, but in order 
to teach well he must also be able to adapt the sub- 
ject matter to the child's mind before him. In 
learning a thing the mind's activity must harmonize 
with the activity of the thing and method merely 
explains the mysterious unity between subject and 
object. Method as thus discussed is rather Cartesian 
in nature but to attain a true conception of method 
this dualism must be substituted by a monistic 
spiritualism. The dualism which is seen so concretely 
in actual teaching must be healed by a basal monism 
which unites subject and object into an organism 
of knowledge. In other words the thought in the 
thing must be translated into the substance of the 
mind in order that teaching may attain a high degree 
of efficiency. 

The problem of method is one with the problem of 
philosophy — to show the relation between the activities 
of the objective order and the activities of the sub- 
jective order. It is the nature of the human mind as 
seen in teaching and in educating to parallel the 
activities of the objective order. When the thought 
and reason of the world return to the mind through its 
own activities, the mysterious unity is obtained by 
cancelling subject and object and returning to the 
eternal reason which is the origin, not only of the 
outer world but of all the activities connected with 
education. The objective method and the subjec- 
tive method are terminal aspects of an eternal conscious- 
ness and, therefore, the estrangement in subject and 
object must be overcome through method. The 
teacher in teaching plant life must restore to the 
human mind that which was estranged from the gen- 
esis of things and hence the ground principle in all 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 61 

method of teaching must have its source in the 
absolute. Objective method and subjective method 
are different phases of the absolute activity. In other 
words the eternal reason manifests itself in the mental 
activities of the child and in the cosmic activities of 
the world and the supreme problem of the teacher 
is to unite these two estranged forms of activity and 
thus heal the original wound of nature. 

(4) Experience : 

The quality of subject and object is the first es- 
sential of experience as it is the first essential of 
method. There is an outer sensuous side of experience 
and an inner psychical side. Experience like method 
is a process rather than a product and is due not so 
much to sense impressions as to thought activity. 
The starting point of experience and induction is 
the sense world but the fact things not only come 
together but hang together. This is the work of the 
mind. 

The what of experience is illustrated by the math- 
ematical, physical and chemical sciences, while 
the how of experience or the mode of experiencing is 
illustrated by the psychological sciences. Experience 
is not merely the what and the how but it involves 
also a relationship between a thing and a person. It 
is the aim of formal education to modify and transmit 
experience and this modification takes place in the 
person and in the thing. The concept of education 
and experience lie close together for we may say edu- 
cation is experience or experience is education. 
Experience has its content side and its form side or 
its subject-matter and its method. It may be defined 
as a modification of the agent and includes both ac- 
tive and passive factors. We learn new experience 



62 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

by means of old experience and when we become 
conscious of experience we have a method of regulat- 
ing it. 

Education may be defined as any intentional 
modification of the one who has experience with a 
view to securing more desirable and avoiding less 
desirable forms of experience. In education there 
is one factor which is not experience and that is the 
intentional modification which the experience has in 
influencing future experience. We may say that any 
one capable of experience is capable of education. 
Any being that cannot be trained cannot be modified 
to change future experience. Training may be defined 
as a modification of future experience where education 
implies a capability of becoming conscious of the 
experiencing process. If a being can see or foresee 
that one type of experience is better than another, 
then we get education in the human sense. 

A glove is modified by experience and this modifi- 
cation affects its future use, but since it does not have 
consciousness it does not in reality have experience, 
for experience may be defined as a kind of stretched 
out form of consciousness. Since education is an 
intentional modification of experience, the teacher 
who has a larger experience is able to guide the pupil 
because he can foresee better future consequences of 
experience. The teacher who has greater experience 
knows what kind of a demand to make upon the 
children who have less experience. In education 
children gradually become conscious of future ex- 
perience but are not conscious operators of experience. 
To attain experience the child must have a capacity 
and a function for experience. We usually think of ex- 
perience as something that comes to us or something 
that happens to us, but in reality the senses and atten- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 63 

tion are selective agencies for gathering experience. 
Experience may be called a dunamis of habit and an 
energeia of attention. As in method, the agent and the 
situation are terminal aspects of the experience process. 
Education has been defined as a reconstruction of 
experience in order to give it a more socialized value. 
In fact the essence of the educational process is the 
transmission of experience from the mature to the 
immature. 

Experience has both a pragmatic and idealistic 
value. It is the task of philosophy to trace in ex- 
perience, in the human mind, and in education, an 
immanent reason upon which both education and 
experience depend. It is through experience that 
spirit realizes itself and the experience pupils gain in 
studying the various branches of knowledge, is a 
method of uniting the estranged intelligence to its 
original source. Since the categories of nature har- 
monize with the categories of thinking, nature is or- 
ganic to thinking and intelligence, and exists only in 
the life of the spirit. That unity which unites sub- 
ject and object, pupil and experience, intelligence and 
the world is the absolute Activity. 

(5) UNIVERSAL EDUCATION: 

Universal education is a recognition by all people 
of the world that every child shall be educated not so 
much from the standpoint of economic and commercial 
success in life, nor because it is a fundamental govern- 
mental principle of self-protection and self-preser- 
vation, but because it is an inherent principle in the 
very nature of mind itself in that it seeks to realize 
itself in and through the instrumentalities of educa- 
tion. Why should every mundane being be educated? 
Why should education be universal? There is a 



64 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

tendency in nature, in plant and animal life and in 
human existence to strive for the highest good. 
Universal education has its explanation and roots in 
a self-realizing universe. There is an energy in the 
world which is seeking its highest perfection and 
which requires universal education as a means to the 
attainment of this ultimate aim. That every in- 
dividual in the world should be educated may be 
explained from the fact, that in man and in the world 
there is a spiritual principle seeking for perfection, 
which can be realized only by the terminal aspects 
of this universal reason recognizing each other, and 
the higher the development of mind the greater the 
unity of these estranged processes. Since the world 
of change and becoming must be grounded in a first 
principle to explain the fact of one of the terminal 
aspects of the world, so universal education to explain 
the other terminal aspect of the world, and that an 
organic unity of these can only be realized when the 
human spirit can see itself and attain itself in the 
otherness of the world. There is an evolution of 
nature and an evolution of mind and in order to show 
that they are different aspects of one eternal process, 
every human being must be educated in order that 
every child of mankind may know every process in 
nature and in order that the spiritual unity and con- 
tinuity of the world may be maintained. Universal 
education is to evolution, as universal history 
is to the race, "A progress in the consciousness of 
freedom." 

(5) Evolution : 

Evolution is a fundamental fact of education and 
while it was originally applied to the facts of biology, 
it is now applied to the facts of education, sociology, 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 65 

institutions and creeds. Education is now conceived 
as dynamic, a process, a change, a becoming, and the 
changes that are going on in the world are not aimless 
but intelligible and there is also a continuity of ex- 
istence and a oneness of all things in spite of their 
difference. The fact that every life is related to every 
other life, and that there is a unity in the world, can 
be explained only by presupposing an eternal energy 
of the world which is constantly changing through 
the process of evolution into higher and higher 
forms. The processes that we see taking place in 
school work may be described in the language of 
Leconte, "As a continuous progressive change accord- 
ing to certain laws and by means of resident forces." 
The evolutionary process that takes place in educa- 
tion is the gradual development of the living, self- 
determining spirit which Spencer says, is not dis- 
tinguished from that power manifested throughout 
the universe. In Huxley we find about the same 
statement: namely, "'In man there lies a fund of 
energy operating intelligently and so far akin to 
that which pervades the universe, that it is com- 
petent to influence and modify the cosmic process." 
According to the evolutionary hypothesis the mind 
is as it acts and the more it acts the more it is. If we 
consider the mind a product of divine nature then 
the mental and spiritual facts of life must be explained 
as an effulgence from the divine spirit. The changes 
that take place in education and in mind may be 
mechanical or spiritual. According to mechanical 
evolution mind was evolved by means of spontaneous 
generation out of the non-mental and that it has 
constantly been developed into higher and higher 
forms of activity. But since spontaneous generation 
has been proved to be false and since it is impossible 



66 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

at any stage of the world series for the mental to 
be derived from the non-mental, naturalistic evolution 
must be superceded by a spiritualistic evolution which 
grounds the world in a spiritual potence and evolu- 
tion is a gradual unfolding of this ultimate creative 
energy. As Tyndall says, It is impossible to explain 
consciousness by means of nervous matter, then 
naturalistic evolution cannot explain the genesis of 
mind unless that evolution first posit a universal 
reason. If this ultimate principle be denied, then 
evolution is powerless in explaining the processes of 
education and the world. 

It is impossible by any theory of naturalistic evo- 
lution to explain the spiritual principle of the school. 
By a concrete study of the school we ascertain that 
its essential nature is not in the desk nor in the black- 
board but in the organic spiritual unity composing; 
the school. The mechanical changes that take place 
in the school must give way to a rational and purposive 
explanation which would consider the school as a 
phase of the evolution of the eternal consciousness. 
It is seen again and again that any fundamental ex- 
planation of the school would lead us into a profound 
explanation of the world process itself and neither 
has any meaning unless grounded in a First Cause. 
When this unitary power functions, a living organism 
is created and its development takes place through 
processes of naturalistic evolution. 

As education implies change and as education is in 
proportion to the change and since wherever one is 
found the other exists, we therefore, decide that these 
two fundamentals belong together. The mind assumes 
that a continued coincidence of marks and charac- 
teristics is the sign of a law of existence and that these 
two elements rationally belong together. It is by 
means of law that mind can pass from evolution and 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 67 

education to the true universal which embodies all 
particulars and which is the informing life of all 
cosmic processes and all concrete processes in the 
school. Mill says, If two or more instances (edu- 
cation and evolution) have one circumstance in com- 
mon (universal reason) that circumstance may be 
regarded as the cause of the series. 

(6) THE SCHOOL: 

To make an inductive study of the school we note 
that it is made up of teacher and pupils as essential 
factors and the school house, apparatus, etc., as the 
non-essential. The facts of the school are school 
yard, school house, books, desks teacher, pupil, 
tuition, trustee, curriculum, recitation, gradation, 
government, etc. These are the factors making up 
the objective school and since they are found to ex- 
ist in all schools we infer that their existence is due 
to an inner law. The human mind is not satisfied 
with these facts of the school but seeks to understand 
the philosophical significance and implications of 
these facts. In carefully studying these school 
facts we notice that some are more essential than 
others. We could eliminate the blackboard or even 
the school-house and still have a school, but if the 
teacher or pupil does not exist in co-operative relation- 
ship then there is no school. On further analysis it 
will be noticed that the school is not the teacher nor 
the pupil but their organic spiritual unity. In fact 
the school-essence is found in that force, energy or 
activity which binds teacher and pupil together. 
Since force is the root idea of law then law is the ulti- 
mate principle of the school. 

Mill makes the statement that if we subtract 
from phenomena such a part as is known to be the 



68 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

effect of certain antecedents, the residue is the effect 
of the remaining antecedent. The residue of the 
multiplicity of school factors is the spiritual energy 
which binds the essential factors together into a bond 
of unity and, therefore, this residue or law is the source 
of the institution called the school. In induction 
we universalize perceived relations or connections 
between the factors of the school and discover the 
final cause of the school's existence, and designate 
this cause as the eternal consciousness from which 
all educational facts are derived. Were we not 
certain of this ultimate principle, even a guess which 
serves to give mental unity and wholeness to a class of 
scattered particulars, would lead us inevitably to a 
world principle or to a universal reason. 

(6) Law: 

The scientist studies and classifies phenomena in 
order that he may arrive at their law. The pedagog- 
ical student studies the facts and phenomena of 
the school in order to ascertain its law. It was 
first thought that every fact in the world was isolated 
and that there is no connection between phenomena. 
A deeper study of the facts of nature lead us to the 
conclusion that every fact in the world is related to 
every other fact, and that the facts of education are 
bound together like the facts of nature by means of 
law. 

When we study the animal and vegetable world we 
find that there are certain facts which occur according 
to a definite rule. This order of sequence of phenom- 
ena seems to be uniform and constant. The apple 
tree puts forth its leaves every springtime. This 
uniformity in vegetable life and the uniformity Kepler 
ascertained to exist in the solar system are called 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 69 

law. The most elementary form of law is this 
uniformity of nature, but the mind constantly seeks 
a force or explanation of this observed order of facts. 
The mind in studying the uniformities in nature — 
that oranges are yellow — that every genus tends to 
produce its species, is not satisfied with mere uniform- 
ity and sequence, but seeks a cause or force which 
produces this intelligent order. In fact the mind is 
not content in knowing that there is a force but tries 
to understand the law and nature of this force. We 
do not wish to know merely that there is a force 
called gravity which tends to draw all objects to the 
centre of the earth, but we desire to know it in 
mathematical and physical measurement. We should 
not only understand the three laws of Kepler in re- 
gard to the densities, velocities and orbits of planets, 
but we should also study the universal law of gravita- 
tion by means of which these forces are measured. 

We notice the tree puts forth its leaves every year 
and that a teacher and pupil constitute a school, 
but we cannot think that nature and the school are 
mechanical processes but are inclined to believe that 
they have a supreme purpose or function to fulfil. 
The tree puts forth its leaves in order to perpetuate 
its species and the school exists in order that the 
human mind may attain its freedom. Science may 
give us a knowledge of the external world, but met- 
aphysics proves that purpose and law rule the world. 
In metaphysics we pass from the seen to the unseen, 
from sense to reason and from fact to principle. 
When the mind penetrates the phenomenal world it 
finds there an invisible energy seeking to realize itself 
through the phenomenal order. This energy or 
invisible principle is called law. Haeckel teaches 
that energy is spiritual and, therefore, when the mind 



70 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

studies the objective order of existence it finds itself, 
unifies itself with intelligence which seems to be the 
source of things. We are told that things seen are 
temporal, while things not seen are eternal. We 
cannot see law, life, nor force but we can trace them 
to their fountain head — the "Living Effort" which 
exists co-extensively in us and in the world. Herschel 
says, "It is but reasonable to regard the force of 
gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a Con- 
sciousness or a Will existing somewhere." We can- 
not think of these forces in nature or in the school as 
independent or separate from this creative activity. 
The mind recognizes in nature a reflection of itself 
and the power or energy in the world which creates 
natural law is derived from this Infinite and Eternal 
Energy. In studying nature or the school we arrive 
at natural law which brings us face to face with truth. 
These natural laws which are but the statement of 
the orderly condition of things, do not originate 
things but are responsible for the uniformity, intelli- 
gence and purpose of things as they exist. It is by 
means of natural law that both the school and nature 
are made rational. The laws of nature are drawn for 
us in order that we may study and understand the 
divine hand that originated them. We arrive at 
the conclusion that natural laws are spiritual laws, 
and that they are the manifestations of the divine 
unity of the world. "They are God's uniform and 
regular way of doing things," and are manifested in 
the natural world, in the educational world and are 
the guiding principles of a study of the concrete 
facts of education. 

(7) THEORY AND PRACTICE: 
Theory without practice is empty, practice without 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 71 

theory is blind. In fact theory is in and through 
practice and practice is in and through theory. 
The theory of teaching or education without making 
a practical application in the actual school room is of 
no pedagogical value. We may also say that practice 
which is not based upon adequate theory is aimless 
and irrational. How a teacher teaches school de- 
pends either upon his previous experience in education- 
al work or upon some theory of education which has 
been well digested and thought out. The theory of 
teaching embraces those fundamental ideas and con- 
ceptions of principles gathered from science and 
philosophy which have attempted to explain the nature 
of the mind, the nature of the objective order, and 
the nature of the teaching process. When the teacher 
goes from the simple to the complex, from the con- 
crete to the abstract, from the particular to the general 
in teaching facts he is guided by theory and his prac- 
tice will be as rational as the theory upon which it is 
based. A teacher who attempts to teach and who 
does not possess principles or theory upon which to 
base his practice will be unsuccessful. Theory in its 
etymological sense (theos) refers to God or the uni- 
versal reason which is the source of all things education- 
al or otherwise. Practice of education which is based 
upon rational theory will harmonize with the mind's 
growth, and with the nature of the subject taught. 
The theories of educational thinkers, Spencer, Herbert, 
Froebel, Hegel, Rousseau and others have largely guid- 
ed and influenced the practice of education and our 
actual concrete work in the school room depends large- 
ly upon these educational thinkers who have laid down 
fundamental truths to guide educational practice. 
If we are Herbartians our recitation will be divided 
into preparation, presentation, apperception, gener- 



72 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

alization and application; if we are Hegelians we will 
attempt to unify the thinker and the thing thought 
through an immanent reason that pervades things 
and our practice will be rationalized and guided by 
the eternal consciousness which is the genesis of 
rational teaching and human thinking. 

(7) Principle : 

Some of the principles upon which educational 
practice is based are culture, efficiency, discipline, 
knowledge, development, social progress, character 
citizenship and rational freedom. These principles 
are plans of action, hypotheses for teaching and 
determine the nature and purpose of education. If 
the teacher leads the pupil into the thought and wis- 
dom of the ages, into Greek art and philosophy, 
into mathematics, and into language and literature 
for their own sake his principle will be that of culture. 
If the pupil is required to put his knowledge into 
practice, if in fact he is not taught any knowledge 
unless it functions in life, then he is following the 
principle of efficiency. The modern emphasis in 
industrial and vocational education is such an ex- 
ample of giving education a practical bearing. If the 
mind is sharpened merely by the tools of education, 
mathematics, language, science, etc., then we have the 
Locke idea of education as a discipline of the mind. 
By many educators the summum bonum of all educa- 
tion is the acquisition of knowledge. The empiricist 
would say that knowledge depends upon experience, 
the rationalist would teach that knowledge is due to 
the inherent activity of the mind and the critical 
philosopher would say that knowledge is attained both 
through perception and the understanding. 

According to Pestalozzi education is the develop- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 73 

ment or the unfolding of all the powers and capacities 
of the individual. This view is in harmony with the 
principle of evolution and must have a place in any 
theory of education. Herbart and his followers 
would make character the chief aim of education. 
Others would say education is not wholly psychological 
nor ethical but has a large sociological factor and is 
an adjustment of the individual to his environment. 
Education as defined by this class of thinkers is a 
reconstruction of experience in order to give it a more 
socialized value. Others would make citizenship the 
ideal in education. That principle of education 
which is most fundamental may be called rational 
freedom. When the individual obeys the inner 
laws of his own nature and when he finds back of all 
existence a self -activity or soul akin to his soul, 
both his actions and thoughts are free His actions 
are free when control arises from within rather than 
from without and his thoughts are free when he unifies 
himself with the thought and spirit of the world 
other than himself. In conclusion we may say that 
a principle is a guiding factor in life and has its source 
in the divine being. 

(8) THE CURRICULUM: 

The Course of Study is the heart of the school 
since it serves as the meeting point for teacher and 
pupil. The child furnishes the instincts, impulses, 
habits, ideas and thoughts, and the curriculum fur- 
nishes the living spiritual activity in the form of 
civilization. However, the essential thing in educa- 
tion is the interaction between the mind of the child 
and the inheritance of the race. The interaction 
between man and nature which we see daily, is the 
prototype of all education. Dr. Harris would base 



74 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

the course of study upon civilization as found in 
mathematics, physics, biology, literature and art, 
grammar and language, history and institutions 
and would, therefore, take a retrospective view of 
education while Dr. Dewey would emphasize the 
social side of education and take a prospective view. 
Whatever may be offered as a course of study the 
chief factor in education is the interaction of personali- 
ty and environment. The child contributes the psy- 
chological factor, the school, the sociological factor 
and the curriculum, the values of civilization and 
life. The school is an institution in which are gath- 
ered together the influences and agencies of social life 
which will best put the child into the spiritual inher- 
itance of the race. The school has two aspects or 
phases, the corporate and the individual. The course 
of study is the corporate aspect and represents the 
thoughts of all individuals thinking together in a 
certain way. The teacher and the child act together 
for the sake of an interrelated end, which has been 
previously thought out by the teacher. The corpo- 
rate energy reshapes the instincts, impulses and ideas 
of the child by means of the norms of the school. 
The curriculum gives the what and the child the how 
but the essential thing in education is the interaction 
between the two. By means of this interaction the 
child's experience is corrected, expanded, deepened 
and organized and is given the achievement of the 
race. While personality and environment, the child 
and curriculum, are important factors in education, 
the heart of the school is in the interaction between 
these two forms of activities. 

(8) Interaction: 
In studying the school one will observe that there 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 75 

is an interaction between the child and the teacher, 
between the child and the curriculum and between 
the child and community life. By interaction we 
mean things mutually affect and determine one an- 
other. Without this assumption the school would fall 
asunder in unconnected units for there would be no 
force nor causation holding things together. This 
unseen thing in the school is the inner law which 
adjusts every objective factor in the school to every 
other factor. Interaction and law between the child, 
teacher, curriculum and community are, therefore, 
necessary to bind these organic elements into a com- 
mon scheme or system. Whenever there is system, 
everything is related to every other thing in an all- 
embracing adjustment. It must continually be kept 
in mind that the teacher and the curriculum do not 
constitute the essence of the school for that conception 
is found in interaction according to law and in har- 
mony with intelligence. A unitary system of interact- 
ing members is possible on the supposition of a unitary 
being which posits and maintains them in their 
mutual relation. The experimentalist, the inductive 
thinker would see the factors in education isolated 
but the metaphysical thinker would see them con- 
nected by interaction and law. Attempts have been 
made to explain the relations of things by transferring 
the conditions of one thing into those of another, as 
heat and motion are transferred, or the passing 
influence which may affect the different elements 
of the whole. The scientist would explain interaction 
by forces which play between things and produce, 
effects, or by the theory of impact which is no more 
intelligible between independent things than action 
is intelligence at a distance. 

Interaction is not a fact of experience and cannot 



76 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

be proved by inductive reasoning. All that obser- 
vation can give us is the concomitant variation 
among things. The child, teacher and the curric- 
ulum do not have their properties and powers 
within themselves but in their relation to each other. 
The law for the activity of one of the factors of the 
school must be given in terms of interaction of all of 
them. This statement implies that the existence of 
of one of these elements is relative to the existence of 
all and things are what they are because other things are 
what they are. Each of these four factors of educa- 
tion are functions of all and all are functions of each. 
There cannot be interaction between independent 
things for the idea of interaction means that one 
thing is determined by another and hence the child 
or the teacher cannot exist in an educational sense 
apart from his correlative. In fact nothing can exist 
outside of its relations for Green would say that the 
thing is its relations and if the relations should vanish 
the thing would cease to exist. 

Instead of trying to construct the school from the 
teacher, the pupil and the curriculum we rather 
construct these from the idea of interaction which 
is the source and ground of education. The recip- 
rocal and concomitant changes that take place in 
the school grow out of the facts of education and have 
a philosophical significance. We cannot explain the 
interacting process by means of the relative and 
dependent but must affirm a fundamental reality 
which is absolute and independent and in the unity 
of which we find the true explanation of interaction 
and education. The interaction of these educational 
elements is possible through an All-Embracing Unity 
which co-ordinates and mediates the seemingly con- 
tradictory elements into an organic whole. The 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 77 

pluralism of inductive thought must be replaced by a 
monism of speculative thought. This fundamental 
reality is self-sufficient, independent and absolute 
and organizes the educational facts into a coherent 
system. Again we have passed from the elements 
of the school, the elements of education to a univer- 
sal being who is creative and constructive and gener- 
ates all forms of activity and all phases of education. 
This architectonic principle is the life of the plant and 
animal, the essence of man and the underlying real- 
ity of education. 

(9) THE SCIENCES: 

In the formation of the curriculum the sciences 
have become important factors and must be recog- 
nized because they present concrete facts, classify 
knowledge, and give the mind's interpretation of 
objective reality. The facts of science are not as 
concrete as they first seem for they represent the 
reaction of intelligence upon the objective order, 
creating a subjective order paralleling objective ex- 
istence. In fact, botany for example, has more to do 
with mind than with plant life, and is more a product 
of mind than a product of matter. Botany is what 
thought knows {scio-to know) of the flora and if there 
is any plant life not known to the mind it is not a part 
of botanical science, however real it exists in the 
outer world. It is true there are objective forms, 
roots, branches, leaves, etc., and uniformities known 
as laws of nature, but all of these are what they are 
through the relating activity of intelligence 
for we must constantly remember that while 
the understanding does not make nature in an 
ontological sense it does make it in an epistemolog- 
cal sense. 



78 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

In teaching zoology the instructor is supposed to 
be dealing with hard lumpish existence, such as the 
panther, owl, etc., but neither of these enters the mind 
and what he is trying to get into the mind is some one's 
interpretation of what these lumpish material ex- 
istences mean. When Couvier builds up an animal 
out of a single bone he constructs the animal out of 
his own inner consciousness and both the real and 
ideal are the work of the mind. The ages and eras 
of geology are the work of the mind paralleling certain 
objective strata actually existing in the real world. 
The reactions in chemistry are a series of mental 
reactions reflected in the mind from the heart-beat 
of the world. Kant opposed Hume and Locke and 
taught that all scientific experience is due to the 
organizing activity of intelligence. Later thinkers 
would say that there is in nature a cosmic intelligence 
corresponding to human intelligence which gives 
nature its real existence and connects it with human 
consciousness. 

(9) Thought : 

Since science and thought exist together and vary 
together it is inferred that they belong together for 
the frequency of their coincidence proves that the 
relation is not a chance conjunction but a real con- 
nection. The previous discussion of the formation 
of science has established the fact that the body of 
knowledge known as botany, geology, etc, is due to 
the creative activity of thought and that the things 
of the world are organized into science through a 
thought activity. In this way thought builds up the 
ideal world (in distinction from the real world) 
which forms the basis of all educational work. The 
instruction the individual gets in science is this ideal 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 79 

knowledge which has been classified and arranged 
in the most teachable and interesting form. In 
thinking of such as ideal system of knowledge the 
unity of mind is the supreme thing and the members 
of the system come into existence through a unitary 
thought. This system of thought may have for its 
basis a supreme self-determining reality which is the 
ground for the constant and rational order of things. 
Is this discussion we are taught that the facts of 
science exist for us only as the mind builds them up 
within itself. The forms of the different sciences are 
the forms of thought and we can have no knowledge 
which is not determined by these forms. Botany 
zoology, etc, are descriptions of objects cast in the molds 
of thought for unless the laws of thought are the laws 
of things science is impossible. The dualism of 
matter and thought in science has been overcome by 
an absolute idealism whose origin can be traced to 
Kant. In Hegel this dualism is cancelled and both 
thought and thing have their genesis in the eternal 
reason. This primal thought was developed by its 
own laws into a world of persons and a world of things. 
Stated inductively thought and thing are terminal 
points of view of one eternal world movement. In 
fact in any system of metaphysics of education, 
thought and thing must be identified. To illustrate 
this problem let us study the triangle; it may be 
studied from its content or meaning or from the 
mental activity necessary to conceive it. Only in 
the sense of content or meaning can the thought 
triangle and the thing triangle be identified. Since 
it is the thought of a triangle with which we deal 
and these thoughts are subject to logic then the laws 
of thoughts are the laws of things. If it can be proved 
that thought is the active principle of reality then 
thought acquires an objective significance and the 



80 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

human mind is able to comprehend the world of 
reality. 

In a metaphysics of education we need an explana- 
tion similar to the Kantian trichotomy — the soul, 
the world and God. The soul represents the finite 
knower, the world, objective existence and God is 
the presupposition and bond of union. We must get 
behind the finite subject and object and seek for a 
common bond of union if knowledge and education 
mean anything. The only solution to the problem 
is the dualism of the finite must be superceded by 
a monism of the infinite. The thought and extension 
of Spinoza are two attributes of an infinite substance 
or according to other writers mind and matter are 
considered opposite poles of a basal reality. This 
form of dualism is incomprehensible and the final 
solution is to make thought the source of things or 
the activity through which things exist. The finite 
subject and the cosmic object must find their bond of 
union not in an impersonal substance but in a personal 
absolute. As things are products of creative thought 
and are commensurable with intelligence and as the 
human mind and the cosmic thing are traced to a 
common source the antithesis of thought and thing 
are overcome. Science and mind, fact and thought 
can be traced to an all-comprehensive unity and an 
eternal consciousness whose evolution resolves itself 
into this dual manifestation. 

(10) EDUCATIONAL AIMS: 

In establishing free schools the state has an aim, 
in building a school house, the city and district have 
a purpose, in organizing a school, the principal has 
an aim, in teaching a class the teacher has an end to 
be realized. To teach without an aim is to attempt 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 81 

to run a ship without a rudder. Purpose gives both 
teacher and pupil interest and attention and acts 
as a powerful incentive in the completion of a definite 
course of study. If the student desires to attend 
college he studies mathematics, language and liter- 
ature and such studies as will aid him in realizing his 
college ideal. The teacher should have a definite 
end in view in every recitation and both teacher and 
pupil should work together for the accomplishment 
of a definite purpose. A student sometimes studies 
English or book-keeping in order to prepare himself 
for some commercial position. It is well to have a 
specific purpose and then have a supreme purpose 
which when realized will direct the individual to the 
highest aim possible in life. Suppose an individual 
has for his ultimate purpose in life, perfection or 
self-realization, then he must have a specific purpose 
such as studying language, literature and history as a 
means to the desired end. When a pupil studies a 
subject he should understand it in relation to other 
subjects and know what it means in the realization 
of his life's ideal. 

It will thus be seen that purpose rules the education- 
al process and no act of school work should be aimless 
but every study hour, every recitation and every 
subject studied should have a definite aim in the at- 
tainment of all that is truest, best and noblest in 
life. School purposes have their origin not in the 
life and thought of the teacher merely but in the eternal 
purpose which guides and rules all things. The 
many specific purposes which guide the teacher in his 
work should be grounded in a universal purpose which 
is coextensive with the life of the individual and the 
life of the world. 



82 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

(10) Purpose: 

In all organic life we find an activity which tends 
toward a future end. In the acorn and egg there is a 
forward look to an ultimate purpose for the realiza- 
tion of the species. The teleologist sees in domestic 
animals, cereal grains, metallic ores and coal beds, 
a provision for mankind. From the inductive angle 
of view we find many marks of design and contrivance 
in the organic world which impel us to believe that 
there is an intelligent and purposive being back of all 
things. In fact the purpose running through the 
world cannot be explained unless we presuppose a 
divine purpose as its origin. In nature we see con- 
trivances for the distribution of seed and for the pres- 
ervation of life which cannot be explained by natural 
selection but which can be explained only upon the 
hypothesis that purpose rules the world. When we 
see processes in nature which look to forward results, 
as the sprouting of seed and the blooming of fruit 
trees, we conclude that these natural processes are 
not due to efficient causation but must be explained 
in terms of final cause. Events and facts which are 
due to an order of law must be interpreted in terms of 
purpose. While nature realizes her purpose from 
within, human beings realize their purpose by set- 
ting up ideals and striving to attain them. 

Final cause does not exclude efficient cause but the 
end is attained through efficient means. We set 
up a certain ideal of education to be attained and this 
purpose can be realized through mechanical forces 
and phycal activity. The essential thing in the 
problem of purpose is the forward look, the toil 
cooperant, whether in the acorn or in the egg, in the 
biological system or in the great world movement. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 83 

The scientist tells us that natural selection has de- 
stroyed final cause, but the fact is instead of destroy- 
ing design modern science has enriched and emphasized 
it. Natural selection is not the sole cause of organic 
development but acts by selecting variations and the 
variations must exist before they are selected. Since 
the world is a necessary consequence of variability it 
is full of adaptation which suggests design. As all 
variations are vigorously determined, then all natural 
selection which uses these variations must be designed. 
There is in the organic system no place for chance but 
the purposive-like adaptations must be explained by a 
supreme purpose. The trouble in the question of 
design is that when it becomes too complex it is 
difficult to understand and when purpose is slowly 
realized it is difficult to believe. Again when purpose 
works through a traceable law it is not supposed to be 
purpose. A positive inductive argument for design 
begins by showing that many processes in nature 
are determined by an end. The evolutionist would 
say that the special senses were developed by adapta- 
tion to use while the teleologist would say the aim of 
the eye is to see, the ear to hear and lungs to oxygenate 
the blood. 

We first make an inductive inquiry whether there 
be an activity for ends in nature and then conclude 
that such finality can be understood by a purposive 
intelligence. There are a great many activities in 
nature which are impossible to explain unless we refer 
them to final causes. There is a natural transition 
from the purpose of human action to a purpose of a 
world action. This cosmic activity which permeates 
the world is the ground for all design of 
nature and for all aims in education. The aims, 
ends, ideals and purposes in education may be traced 



84 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

to the universal reason which Royce says, "plan and 
you plan" and is the genesis of all perfect activity 
in humanity. Again the metaphysics of education 
is proved by referring the concrete activities of the 
school to a unitary reason which controls all education- 
al and physical life. Such a study of education uni- 
fies and organizes the factors and forces in education 
and refers all school activities to an original energy. 
The science of education studies and classifies the 
facts of education as the analyst would the facts of 
any material. But unless these facts are given a 
philosophical significance, they have no permanent 
basis upon which to rest. 

(11) TEACHER AND PUPIL: 

The two essential factors of the school are teacher 
and pupil, or as some one has said the school is the 
organic spiritual unity of teacher and pupil. What 
makes the teacher a teacher or the pupil a pupil is 
his personality, which may be described as the uni- 
fying principle organizing man's attributes and func- 
tions into an individual self. Matter, force, energy, 
ideas, time, space, law, freedom, and cause are mean- 
ingless except in the light of personal experience. 
It is from the intense consciousness of our existence 
as persons that the conception of reality originates 
in our minds. Self-consciousness which involves 
self-determination is the fundamental characteristic 
of personality. 

These marks of personality belong to both teacher 
and pupil and make both a rational energy rather than 
a substance and a being capable of self-determination 
and self-realization. The synthesis between teacher 
and pupil causes the pupil to realize the spiritual 
principle which exists in his own nature and which 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 85 

is ultimate of all that is. To understand the organic 
unity of teacher and pupil, and pupil and curriculum 
would lead us to an understanding of the nature of 
things which organizes the school and represents the 
heart-beat of what is. The teacher, pupil and the 
school are different manifestations of a single principle 
and to be in harmony with the life of the school is to 
be united to this divine nous. The pupil is not a 
physical being, not so much an individual, but a real 
person who can distinguish between what he is and 
what he ought to be and whose essential nature is 
consciousness and self-determination. That which 
is taught is a personal being whose preeminent char- 
acteristic is self -activity and freedom. So much 
emphasis is now placed upon the physical child that 
education seems to be more a physical process rather 
than an intellectual one. 

(11) Personality: 

The purpose of science is to study and classify 
facts but the purpose of philosophy is to interpret 
and explain personal life and personal relations. 
In studying personality we must remember that 
experience is not primarily from without, but is 
through a constitutive, mental activity immanent in 
the understanding. The outer world, the sense clicks 
of the telegraph instrument, language, music and 
painting means nothing to the individual unless he 
has the key to each within himself. The world that 
I know is my own personal world and the things we 
see are the things we construct in our consciousness 
for the mind in knowing objects, imposes its own 
forms and laws upon the object. I cannot interpret 
the hieroglyphics on Cleopatra's Needle in Central 
Park until I have the key within myself, but it is also 



86 THE METAPHYSICS OF. EDUCATION 

true that the inscription must have meaning if it 
is to be interpreted. The only real unity in the outer 
world for me is the unity of self -consciousness as the 
world of knowledge is constructed by our own per- 
sonal activity, so the world of reality must depend 
upon some supreme intelligence behind all things. 
We cannot understand language unless it is informed 
with thought and we cannot understand the world 
unless it is informed with supreme thought. 

One of the chief elements of personality is freedom, 
which means the power of self -direction, the power 
to form plans, purposes and ideals and the power to 
realize them. Naturalism and realism are species 
of impersonalism which attempt to explain the 
world by an impersonal and mechanical principle 
but it cannot explain life, morals, mind and society, 
for the explanation of these is the world of power 
which includes intelligence and purpose. All species 
of impersonalism including evolutionism fail in 
finding the world unity, for the only unity that we 
know anything about is the unitary self. The essen- 
tial meaning of personality is selfhood, self -conscious- 
ness, self-control and the power to know. A complete 
and perfect personality can be found only in the ab- 
solute being. 

The personal world is the invisible world. The 
physical being is an instrument for expressing the 
real personal life. Personality is revealed through 
ideas, thoughts and deeds and the real person is as 
invisible as the supreme personality behind the phe- 
nomenal world. In fact our physical attitudes and 
actions mean nothing when separated from personal 
life behind them. Out of the invisible comes a mean- 
ing which transforms these physical activities into 
personality and gives them a human significance. A 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 87 

world of persons with a supreme person at the head 
is the conclusion at which we arrive by an inductive 
study of the facts of education. From a metaphysical 
point of view we cannot explain the existence of the 
many without affirming a fundamental reality which 
is one, but which produces and co-ordinates the many. 
It is difficult to understand the relation of the many 
to the one, but we know that reality is not an extended 
stuff, but an agent, a self-conscious intelligence. Our 
personality is in self-control, self -direction and the 
freedom to act upon our own initiative. We must 
remember the self-control of the free spirit. 

The supreme personality has been called pure will, 
unconscious intelligence, impersonal reason, imperson- 
al spirit, and universal life. Schopenhauer calls 
this reality pure will without intellect or personality. 
The mind world of Plato and the plastic principle of 
Cudworth are examples of unconscious intelligence. 
By the term impersonal reason some would mean a 
blind force which ia not reason but which is adjusted 
to the production of rational results. The imper- 
sonal spirit is what the atheist calls the persistent 
force of the universal life. These do not contain 
the elements of personality; namely, selfhood, self- 
knowledge and self -direction. The absolute knowledge 
and self-possession which are necessary to personality 
can be found only in the absolute and infinite being 
upon whom all things depend. 

(12) ART EDUCATION: 

According to Huxley the aesthetic faculty needs 
to be aroused, directed and cultivated and no scheme 
of education is complete that does not include a 
study of art. The purpose of art is to reveal to the 
child all the possibilities slumbering within his soul; 



88 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

to assist him in carving the spirit in marble, in paint- 
ing the soul on canvas, and in unveiling the rhyth- 
mical spirit in song and in verse. In drawing the 
child is expressing his thoughts which at first may 
be crude and fragmentary, but which become more 
complex and beautiful as he understands how to 
liberate the pulsating spirit upon paper. 

If we make a study of the evolution and psychology 
of art we will notice that the lowest form is artifice 
which aims at utility. The second phase of art 
development is artistic treatment which aims to portray 
the agreeble feeling. We may illustrate this phase 
of art by the yacht whose lines are as graceful as the 
boat is useful. The ornamental is the third division 
in the evolution of art and is a decoration of some 
instrument or utensil. The properties of ornament 
are symmetry, repetition and feeling. The next 
evolutionary division of art is embellishment which 
excites our admiration and wonder. Examples of 
this form of art are the jewels on harness, the rings 
on the fingers, and the feathers in the hair of the 
savage. The so-called Fine Arts, painting, music, 
poetry, sculpture and architecture are the highest 
forms of art which arouse the emotions and stimulate 
the intellect. These last forms of art may be classi- 
fied as the symbolic, classic and romantic. These 
classifications are based upon the relation between the 
ideal and the material in which it is represented. In 
architecture or symbolic art, the material predominates 
over the spiritual and the cathedral does not repre- 
sent an idea perfectly but merely hints at it. In 
sculpture or classic art the material and spiritual are 
balanced. In romantic art, painting, music and poetry 
the spiritual predominates over the material and we 
have the highest form of art. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 89 

(12) The Aesthetical: 

The aesthetical problem in a metaphysics of education 
is to show that the many forces of art may be traced 
to the absolute, self-determined spirit. The beauti- 
ful which has been defined as the shining of an idea 
through a sensible medium has its origin in the human 
soul and in the divine being and is nothing more than 
the inner self unfolding itself and objectifying itself 
in external form. In its ultimate form the ideal in 
art is the absolute self -determining spirit or the divine 
principle realizing itself in some objective form. 
According to Dr. Kedney this eternal principle of 
art is the beautiful and inhabits matter and consti- 
tutes its veritable essence. In other words it is the 
universal reason which manifests itself in the human 
soul in the character of truth, beauty and goodness. 

In modern education the child's aesthetic nature 
is starving and we need to develop the beautiful in 
all phases of school work. In written recitations the 
pupil should understand the principle of balance and 
be able to put his work upon the blackboard accurately 
and artistically. Children should be introduced to 
works of art suitable to their age of appreciation, 
beginning perhaps with Landseer and Millet and in 
the advanced grades of school work ending with such 
artists as Titian, Raphael and Michael Angelo. To 
study these great works of art and to live in their 
presence really constitute an aesthetic education. 
The individual should study a picture, poem or an 
opera not merely to understand the meaning but to 
appreciate the soul inspiring beauty which is the 
heart of a work of art. Since the self-determined 
spirit is the prototype of all beauty all study of art is 
cancelling the estrangement, as Rosenkranz would 



90 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

say, and returning to itself enriched, realized and 
completed. It is the active principle by which the 
mind grasps the spiritual in art and in nature, and 
makes it a part of its own being. Mind becomes 
satisfied, attains its freedom when it permeates all 
its products and the products of the supreme intelli- 
gence and makes them its own. 

(13) MORAL EDUCATION: 

Many aims have been proposed in education; as 
culture, social efificiency and character formation. 
While each of these have their value in education a 
highly developed moral character seems to be the 
supreme purpose of all educational work. Teachers 
may differ as to how this may be realized, whether 
by obedience to authority or by the self evolution of 
the individual's own initiative, but all educators will 
agree that pupils should understand their ethical 
relationships. It is not moral education to merely 
train the will but to stir up the inner life by intellect- 
ual endeavor and give the individual an appreciation 
of what is true, beautiful and good. Each pupil 
should be taught to recognize in every other pupil 
a self akin to his own nature to which he must adjust 
his own life in order to bring out what is best in him. 

To introduce some artificial stimulus, as a prize 
or a reward, between the pupil and what he studies, 
is not only a violation of the teaching process which 
assumes a unity of the two, but also in direct opposi- 
tion to correct ethical training for the pupil will 
practice deceit when he studies under the pressure 
of a prize or reward. School ethics should be taught 
in a concrete manner by leading the pupil to see the 
consequences of his own act. If a pupil injures an- 
other or causes some one unhappiness intentionally 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 91 

the deed must be made to return upon his own head, 
and he should be made to suffer not merely for his 
act but to teach him the results of immoral conduct. 
The pupil should be taught obedience to the law of 
the school not externally but should be made to see 
that to live in harmony with the school he is obeying 
his own rationality and thereby attaining his own 
freedom. Moral principles should be taught ex- 
perimentally and the pupil should be led to realize 
that duty to self and duty to others are harmonized 
by grounding both in a principle of eternal conscious- 
ness. 

(13) The Ethical: 

Since the characteristics of the mind (combining 
and unifying) are marks applied to the Divine Mind, 
we infer that the human mind is a form of the eter- 
nal consciousness and the key to ethical training is 
personality, humanity and divinity. According to 
Thomas Hill Green there is a Divine Eternal Spirit 
who is all the human spirit may become. Spirit is 
self-distinguishing, self -objectifying and combining, 
and the categories it uses in understanding nature 
are the same categories it uses in reflecting upon its 
own nature, and this synthesizing principle becomes 
the moral ideal. As a corollary to this statement 
the self-conscious personality has its origin in the 
supreme personality and the ethical ideal grows out 
of the intellectual, combining, self-distinguishing and 
self -objectifying agency. 

The ethical question is to study the relation in 
which we stand to the one self-distinguishing subject 
other than nature which we find to be implied in 
nature. Conduct expresses a motive consisting in 
an idea of personal good which we seek to realize 



92 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

in action. The presentation of such an idea of con- 
duct implies the action of the eternal consciousness. 
The chief question of ethics is what is our moral 
nature, what is the moral good and what do we mean 
by calling ourselves moral agents? The answer to 
these questions is: — the moral good is the realization 
of the moral capability and we cannot know fully 
what moral capability is until we know its final 
realization. We can approximate what a capability 
may become by knowing what it has already attained. 
It is impossible to attain moral and intellectual per- 
fection which an individual is to become according 
to a divine plan, for we do not know the individual's 
potential activity and we cannot conceive of a per- 
fect state of self-realization. However, we are in- 
clined to believe that there is a state of being for man 
which is called the best in the fact that it lies in the 
full realization of his capabilities and that in this 
realization he alone can satisfy himself. He also takes 
it for granted that the best state the human indi- 
vidual may attain, is already realized in the divine 
consciousness, so that the whole duty of man 
is to attain some unfulfilled and unrealized state 
which the divine has already accomplished. The 
very fact that there is an attainable state for man, 
has an influence in the process by which man has so 
far bettered himself, and that a continued operation 
of the same idea in us with the growing definiteness 
which is gathered from reflection on the actions and 
institutions in which it has so far manifested itself, 
is the condition of character and conduct. 

In order to justify this statement, we must lay 
down the principle that reason holds that the existence 
of one connected world which is the presupposition 
of knowledge, implies the action of one self -condition- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 93 

ing and self-determining mind, and that our knowledge 
and moral activity are explicable on the hypothesis 
of the reproduction of itself on the part of the eternal 
mind. This proposition cannot be proved by ob- 
servation nor experimentation, but it is the only 
doctrine that affords means by which we can under- 
stand, by taking the whole world and ourselves into 
organic unity, ''how we are and how we do what we do'' 
In this statement we express what cannot be denied 
and what man's reason and man's will actually at- 
tempt to attain. 

According to this theory the eternal mind manifests 
itself in the intelligence and will of man. In virtue 
of this self -objectify ing principle, man is determined 
not by natural wants and laws, but by the fact that 
he has ends and capabilities to be realized. While 
the animal gropes in the dark, man has the impulse 
to transform his potentiality into actuality and is, 
therefore, a self-determining creature. Man lives 
for ends which the divine principle makes him capable 
of attaining and in working out his moral ideals he is 
doing nothing but realizing the promise and potency 
of his nature. 

The virtuous life springs from the same self-objec- 
tifying source as the vicious life but the virtuous life 
is governed by the consciousness of a perfection to 
be attained, of a vocation to be fulfilled, of a law to be 
obeyed, and of a mysterious force which enables an 
individual to attain his perfection. These ideals 
are what keep the individual in a progressive state 
of moral perfection. According to this doctrine of 
ethics both the reason and will which play such a 
large part in ethical discussions are modes of that 
eternal principle of self-objectifi cation which produces 
itself in man through the medium of an animal or- 



94 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

ganism. To develop one's capabilities is to unify 
the developed will and developed reason for the self- 
objectifying principle cannot exert itself as will 
without exerting itself as reason. The moralizing 
influence in man depends upon his reason because 
through the operative consciousness man realizes 
his possible state to be obtained which is better than 
his actual condition, and because the divine self- 
realizing principle in him gradually fulfils its capacity 
in a production of a higher life. The initiative, 
virtuous habits and actions depend upon the conscious- 
ness which is directed in the path in which it tends to 
become what according to its immanent divine law 
it has in it to be. For the self-realization of the divine 
principle in man, the will must harmonize with reason. 
The better reason enables him to see the better good 
and the eternal reason moves him to attain all his 
possible capabilities. In every moral action the will 
is exerted as much as the reason and every step forward 
in the perfection of the divine principle in man in- 
volves a determination of will no less than of reason. 
We have been brought in our argument to the one 
fundamental axiom that the divine mind reproduces 
itself in the human soul through certain media, under 
certain limitations, but with the constant character- 
istics of self -consciousness and self-objectification. 
For man, the true good is to realize these capabili- 
ties for this alone can satisfy him and give him rest. 
Just how these capabilities are to be realized is not 
known for they have not wholly been attained by 
any living human being. The fundamental influence 
lies in the consciousness of his capabilities, potential- 
ities and of obtaining his fullest realization which his 
spiritual nature may enable him to attain. This 
inner spiritual principle is the essential characteristic 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 95 

of human institutions, social ideals, and aspirations 
through which humanity has been bettered. There- 
fore, an individual's true good will be the realization 
of these eternal immanent principles of mankind, 
and his goodness depends upon his approximate 
attainment of them. Just how the realization of 
these ideals becomes a moralizing principle in human 
life and how it has developed our moral standards 
must be further explained. First, there is a certain 
divine principle which is the ground of human will 
and reason. Second, these principles realize them- 
selves in man. Third, this divine principle has capaci- 
ties and capabilities which when fully developed would 
constitute the perfect life. 

These moral principles may be realized in society 
or in the individual; both must have ideals placed 
before them. To be a self -realizing ego is to have 
personality and personality has only one meaning 
and that is, it is the quality in the subject of being 
conscious of an object. We, therefore, come to the 
conclusion that this divine principle can be realized 
only in and through personality. It is impossible 
to conceive the idea of personality apart from self- 
object ificat ion. 

Moral life is the fulfillment in the human spirit 
of some divine idea. The possibilities of man are due 
to the spiritual energy implanted in him by the divine 
idea. No one can exhibit all that the spirit working 
in and through is, potentially. Moral progress is 
due to the realization of the eternal mind implanted 
within us. 

(14) SOCIAL EDUCATION: 

In the light of social science education is defined 
as a modification of experience in order to give that 



M THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

experience more value socially. Education is not 
wholly psychological but largely sociological and is 
an adjustment of the individual to his intellectual 
studies and also to his social environments. The 
individual has a social nature as well as a psycho- 
logical nature which must be developed in a social 
reconstruction. Since the school is not so much a 
preparation for life as it is actual life it should re- 
produce in its processes the phases of social life which 
the pupil is to enter in later life. 

Some of the external factors of the school which 
train him in socialization are games, chapel exercises 
and literary societies. It is just as much an education 
for a pupil to adjust himself to these social organiza- 
tions as it is to grasp the meaning of the subjects 
which he studies. In every school and community 
there are many social organizations: the art club 
studying the history and development of painting; 
the civic club working for better municipal govern- 
ment; the sociological club studying social laws and 
forces, and social degeneracy and crime; and the child 
study club studying child nature. These social 
organizations are educative and wear off the rough 
edges of the pupil's nature and prepare him to appear 
in polite society. 

The recitation has been called a social clearing- 
house and we know that many subjects studied in 
school have an intense social value. Education in 
harmony with the social may be defined as a systematic 
process of training the growing inind plus an external 
process of adjusting the individual to his natural and 
social surroundings. The school, the class, the grade 
have a great social influence upon the student. When 
a pupil enters school, he is made to march to the 
music of the new social order and is thus socialized 
from the first day he enters school. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 97 

(14) The Social: 

The social problem in a metaphysics of education 
is to recognize the social elements and trace the 
unifying principle of society back to its supreme 
origin. To think society as an organic concept, we 
must have a rational notion of the relation of the 
individual to society and should understand how the 
existence of the individual involves and is involved in 
the existence of society. We are prone to believe 
that the individual and society are different aspects 
of a unitary process and that there is a vital and 
intrinsic relationship between them. If we are to under- 
stand the meaning of the individual and society we must 
have a knowledge of the principle from which this 
manifoldness arises. To try to unify them to a 
common substance in which they cohere instead of 
making them one for thought is to put them together 
in a mechanical way. The principle of substance 
may explain the unity of particular objects but when 
we consider spiritual beings it does not enable us to 
comprehend the spiritual unity of man's nature ' 
much less does it give us any idea of the organic 
unity of individuals. By the principle of being we may 
secure the mechanical or chemical unity of things, 
but when we consider a spiritual being the individ- - 
uals are as unconnected, so far as thought is con- 
cerned, as the separate stones of a heap. In consider- 
ing rational beings the principle of substance fails 
to give us any organic unity. 

The relation between the individual and society is 
a spiritual one, and the unity is not a unity beyond 
differences but a unity which manifests itself in 
differences. 

It is the very essence of mind or spirit to contain 



98 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

within itself relation to other human beings. The 
idea of self -consciousness implies an internal dualism, 
a self which is opposed to itself and a self which real- 
izes itself through other beings than itself. The 
individual exists in and through society and society 
exists in and through individuals. The individual 
realizes his nature through other natures which are 
outside of himself but which are in organic relation 
to himself. The total life of an individual as a spirit- 
ual being consists in taking into himself that which 
in society is opposed to himself but which in reality 
is a terminal aspect of one organic movement. The 
mind of the individual cannot be thought of as an 
entity distinct from other beings for it has no reality 
apart from them. This unity is a unity in differences 
in which it finds its very life and existence. 

Thought in its deeper movement can rise to a 
universality which is the inner life and nature of 
things. This universality is immanent in the particular 
and has been defined as an absolute identity or that 
which cancels all difference and otherness. The 
particulars of the world are but manifestations of a 
universal process. We do not attain the idea of an 
organism by thinking the part, members and particu- 
lars but we get a true notion of these through the 
universal. What the parts of an organism, the tree, 
the animal, society, are, is determined by the idea 
of the organism in which they are to realize their 
true nature. 

In a sense, society produces individuals for in it lies 
the ground and reason of their existence. According 
to the organic concept of society, the individual is a, 
manifestation of a social whole and the social whole 
fulfils its idea in the diversity and harmony of the 
individuals. This unity cannot be reached by mere 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 99 

predication but in order to apprehend it, we must 
think in diversity and connect the individual with 
society and understand that society has its existence 
through individuals. The individual attains his 
ideal existence by giving up his self-identical life 
and finding his true life in the larger life of society. 
An individual realizes his true nature, becomes ac- 
tually what he is potentially by ceasing to have a will 
of his own and by identifying his life with the life of 
society. The members of a social organism are 
considered independent yet the individual's life can 
be realized only in the larger corporate life of society. 
Apart from this larger life of society the individual 
is an abstraction. My nature reaches its fullest 
development when the moral life of society flows into 
me. The more developed society becomes the richer 
and fuller is the life that flows into every member of it. 
This original unity is different from the unity of 
generalization and indicates a movement of thought 
corresponding to the inner nature of things. The 
organism in every stage of its growth not only is, 
but is passing from that which it is, to that which it 
is constantly struggling to attain. An organic unity 
is a unity by virtue of its inherent energy seeking 
the end for which the organism was created. The 
organic view of society makes the relations between 
individuals intrinsic, makes changes depend upon 
internal adaptation, and sets forth the doctrine that 
the end or purpose of anything is its essential element. 
If society is a spiritual organism there is then an in- 
trinsic relationship between individuals, and the 
growth and development of society are purposive. 
The end of the individual is attained in and through 
the intrinsic relation to other individuals and since 
these relations bind individuals into society, they are 
called organic. 



100 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

It is true the individual's nature is determined by 
society in which he lives, but it is also true no man is 
merely the product of society, for then it would be 
impossible to give an account of individual differences. 
Since society exists for its own end as well as for the 
end of the individual, the unity which binds these 
elements into a whole may be called organic. If 
human welfare is the end of society, then the end forms 
an essential element in society itself. It is wrong 
to call society or anything else organic unless its end 
lies in its own nature. It is argued by some that the 
only sense, it is correct to call society an organism, is 
to say that the end of society is the end of the indivi- 
dual. McTaggart says it is true that earthly society 
can never be the final end of man, for there is an ab- 
solute ideal of heavenly society to which we are all 
moving by the very nature of things. In mundane 
society each individual is striving for perfection so 
far as earthly society can assist him. If the Absolute 
alone is an organic unity, then earthly society will 
approach an organism just as it approaches perfec- 
tion. Whatever may be the nature and constitution 
of society, whatever draws individuals together, the 
solidarity of humanity can be maintained only on 
the presupposition of an eternal consciousness which 
is the source of all life and thought and to which all 
human beings are striving to approach. 

Doctor Ormond says a real social reaction occurs 
when one conscious unit through the medium of its 
cognitive insight enters into the conscious life of 
another conscious unit and finds it interesting. 
From this statement we get the principle that social- 
ity is developed out of the conscious union of individuals 
who have a likemindedness and a unity of thought 
and purpose. For one conscious unit to enter socially 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 101 

with another conscious unit, there must be a commu- 
nity of nature or likeness of species to make the one 
the complement of the other. If the sympathetic 
and antipathetic are equally balanced no society can 
exist. 

Individuals who form communal molecules may 
be called social atoms. The forces which draw these 
atoms together into an organism is a common nature, 
a common interest, and a common purpose. This 
unity is not a mere aggregation but is an interpen- 
etration of individuals endowed with the same social 
instincts and the same cognitive powers. The social 
order is chaotic unless we rise to a final synthesis in 
which the world movements are conceived and guided 
under an all-comprehending thought and purpose. 
This thought and purpose may not be one with the 
thought and purpose of the social group but it is one 
with an eternal consciousness in which the world- 
movements as a whole are conceived and purposively 
directed to a unitary end. 



III. 

AN EDUCATIONAL INTERPRETATION OF 
METAPHYSICS. 

The Metaphysics of Education should give an 
interpretation of the different systems of thought, 
showing their educational bearing and noting their 
contribution to educational theory and practice. 
No attempt will be made to work out a logical classi- 
fication of the different systems nor to make an ex- 
haustive study of them but to show that metaphysics 
has a direct influence upon the problems of education. 
Every system of thought has left its imprint upon 
educational subject-matter, upon educational meth- 
ods and upon the formation of the different systems 
of education. 

The Numerical Group. 

The numerical group includes atomism, pluralism, 
dualism and parallelism. The ultimate reality of 
these philosophical systems is respectively one, many, 
two, and two in relation. Leucippus thought that 
the world is made of eternal, unchangeable, inde- 
structible, homogeneous particles called matter. He 
claimed that there are countless numbers of atoms and 
that their size must be imperceptibly small since 
all things in our experience are divisible. Demo- 
critus agreed with Leucippus that empty space and 
the atoms moving in it, constitute true reality. He 
attempted to explain from the notion of these atoms 
all phenomena as quantitative phenomena and to 

102 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 103 

interpret mental activity in a similar way. From 
such metaphysical discussions grew the concept of 
atom which has proved so fruitful and valuable to 
natural science. Chemistry and physics are based 
upon the atomic theory and all scientific education 
has felt the influence of atomism. Since nature is not 
an organic whole but an aggregate made up of atoms, 
so society, it is argued, is not organic but is made up 
of an aggregate of individuals. Individualism in 
sociology, ethics, and in education grew out of the 
atomic conception and has had a far-reaching in- 
fluence upon educational procedure. Even if atoms 
have been replaced by electrons the same conception 
remains and the influence is still atomistic. 

The theory of thought which says that ultimate 
reality consists of a multiplicity of distinct beings is 
called pluralism. It may be molecular as in atomism, 
spiritualistic as in the monadology of Leibnitz, or 
indifferent as in Herbart's reals. The monad of 
Leibnitz is psychical in nature, has been called **The 
mirror of the world" and contains the whole universe 
as a representation within itself. They vary in 
grades as follows: consciousness slumbering in the 
stone; dream consciousness in vegetable life; a balance 
of mind and matter in animal; excess of mind over 
body in man and in deity. Monadology is a plural- 
istic spiritualism but is an advanced thought over 
atomistic materialism. Herbart's reals are simple, 
unchangeable and their absolute qualities unknowable. 
They disturb and inhibit each other and the whole 
course of psychical life is explained by the interaction 
of ideas. Berkley assumes that the world is made up 
of a multiplicity of individuals and these individuals 
are immaterial. He accepts the doctrine that ulti- 
mate reality consists of distinct spirits. Hume 



104 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

teaches that reaUty is immaterial and that the universe 
is made up of impressions and ideas. One form of 
personalism is pluralistic and holds that reality is 
a system of related selves or related persons. 

Pluralism has had a decided influence upon thought 
and education but the elements of the world are not 
materialistic as in atomism but are now considered 
as psychical and hence explained better the nature 
of the school, society and the world. Professor James 
says in his Pluralistic Universe "For pluralism all 
that we are required to admit as the constitution of 
reality is what we ourselves find empirically realized 
in every minimum of finite life." He further states 
that nothing real is absolutely simple and that every 
smallest bit of experience is plurally related. The 
philosophy and mathematics of Leibnitz have been a 
contribution to education and have influenced human 
thought in molding educational procedure. Herbart's 
mataphysics influenced his educational theory; prep- 
aration, presentation, apperception, generalization 
and application. Perhaps no philosopher ancient 
or modern has had a greater influence upon education 
than Herbart. Psychical life is considered a kind of 
dynamic chemistry of ideas and new ideas are gained 
by means of old ideas. No word in educational 
literature has had such a magic influence as apper- 
ception, and none has transformed teaching so much 
as his many-sided interest. Berkley's Theory of 
Vision is still studied in Psychology and his doctrine 
of spiritualism is still felt in human thinking. Hume's 
ideas, impressions and the laws of associations — 
contiguity, space and time, resemblance and causality — 
have modified psychical inquiry and are studied by all 
students of psychology. 

According to dualism reality is two: mind and 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 105 

matter. This view is found in common sense, which 
recognizes the ideal and real elements found in the 
world; in Zoriaster's Ormuzd or light and Ahriman or 
darkness; in the good and evil in church philosophy; 
and in the res extensa and the res cogitans of Decartes. 
Kant in his philosophy discusses the relation between 
sense and understanding, the phenomenal and noum- 
enal world. The distinction between subject and 
object originated in Christianity which puts the 
emphasis upon the spiritual rather than upon the 
material phase of life. "For what shall it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul," 
is the Christian maxim. According to Augustine the 
spiritual world is divided into two elements ; the realm 
of God and the realm of the Devil. Windelband says 
that the two occupy in the course of history a relation 
like that of two different races which are mingled 
only in outer action while internally they are strictly 
separate. 

No metaphysics permeates educational theory 
and practice so much as dualism. The course of 
study, the method of teaching and the purpose of 
education are dualistic. In studying the sentence, 
literature and history the student distinguishes 
between the form side and the content side. The 
thought in the sentence is distinct from the language 
in which it is couched ; the form of a literary produc- 
tion is different from its meaning or thought. Every 
event in history, as the Declaration of Independence, 
has a form side and a meaning side. In fact in many 
poems and dramatic productions there is a distinct 
struggle between two phases of life. In "The Rainy 
Day," it is sadness and cheerfulness; in the "Two 
Voices," it is life and death; in the "Merchant of 
Venice," it is love and hate. Homer's "Iliad" con- 



106 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

sists of a series of dualisms and reconciliations. In a 
study of physiology we consider the physical and 
spiritual sides of the child's life. In ethics and in 
school management there are two principles which 
control life; egoism and altruism. In fact children 
are classified in their studies and in government as 
good or bad. The teaching process is analyzed into 
the method of the object and the method of the sub- 
ject. Science deals with ideas and facts or the physical 
thing and the thought about -it. The immanent 
principles of human thinking and knowing are dual- 
istic; object and quality, likeness and difference, 
whole and part, one and many, cause and effect, time 
and place, purpose and means, fixed and changing, 
individual and universal and appearance and reality. 
Educational theory and practice have been dominated 
by a species of dualism which to many thinkers is the 
final word and no reconciliation of opposing forces 
is considered. It should be the teacher's purpose to 
transform real teaching into ideal teaching and to 
show that content determines form or as Goethe puts 
it. the individual is to set forth some universal 
truth. 

The last of the first group is parallelism which 
assumes that every psychosis has its neurosis, or 
brain processes and psychical processes are concomi- 
tant phenomena. Some would say that there is nothing 
in the simultaneous action of brain and mind that 
proves the connection is one of parallelism rather than 
one of interaction. If parallelism be true then to 
every molecule in man's brain there must be an 
answering elementary idea. There is nothing in the 
law of the conservation of energy that keeps us from 
believing whatever produces a physical change must 
itself be physical and whatever produces a psychical 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 107 

change must itself be psychical. This parallelism is, 
therefore, a case of coexistence and not an example 
of causation, for the plane of psychology is distinct 
from the plane of physics. According to Weber's 
law the relation between a stimulus and a sensation 
is a definite mathematical ratio. This was proved 
experimentally in listening to sound, in testing weights 
until the law was verified. Those stimuli which do 
not effect consciousness are said to be below the thresh- 
old or limen of consciousness. Spinoza is the most 
thorough going parallel ist and holds that matter 
and ideas are attributes of one divine subject and that 
every material object has its ideal counterpart. In 
answer to Spinoza we might say that if the order and 
connection of ideas conform to the order and connec- 
tion of physical things, it matters little whether we 
have one or two substances. The doctrine of atomism 
claims there is no causal connection between the 
series. The doctrine of psychophysical parallelism 
is not an explanation but an hypothesis, for we do 
not know that physical energy is transformed into 
psychical energy any more than we know how the 
spiritual and material are united in man. How the 
immaterial can be united with the material says Sir 
William Hamilton, is the mystery of all mysteries to 
man. Pathology and modern physiological psychology 
have thrown much light upon the problem of the re- 
lation of body and mind. 

Psychophysical parallelism has proved to the edu- 
cator that the individual to be educated is both psy- 
chical and physical and that the mind is trained by 
first applying the stimuli to the physical organism. 
It organizes the conditions of growth in accordance 
to psychophysical principles and takes into con- 
sideration the sub-conscious or the threshold of con- 



108 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

sciousness which the educator should understand. 
It has introduced into school, certain tests which 
are valuable in teaching, in government and in or- 
ganization. The ear is tested and the eyes are ex- 
amined in order to facilitate the acquisition of knowl- 
edge and as a means of school government. It has 
an intimate relation with a study of the sensory and 
motor areas of the brain and with certain patholog- 
ical conditions, such as aphasia and alexia, which 
have an influence upon education. This theory, 
however, is not entirely satisfactory for education is 
not brain development but mind development. It 
has emphasized the physiological and hygienic 
condition of children and has shown conclusively that 
the being to be educated must be physically and 
psychically sound, and emphasizes John Locke's 
maxim of a sound mind and a sound body. 

The Material Group. 

The material group is not a logical arrangement 
but rather a convenient mode of classification for 
discussion and embraces materialism, naturalism, 
mechanism and positivism. Materialism resolves all 
things into matter and everything including conscious- 
ness is derived from matter. Moleschott makes the 
statement that thought is a motion of matter. Vogt 
claims that mental activity is the function of the cere- 
bral substance. Haeckel makes mind a function of 
the central nervous system and identifies spirit with 
energy which Ostwald says is the ultimate reality. 
Any philosopher who reduces mind to a sum of 
mental states and then uses these states as a result of 
organization is materialistic. The great difficulty 
with materialism is that thoughts and feelings have 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 109 

nothing in common with matter and motion and it 
is impossible to identify the mental with the material. 
It does not remove the difficulty to say that mentality 
and materiality are opposite phases of the same 
substance and are at heart one. Since it is impossible 
to explain thought in terms of matter and motion a 
tertium quid is introduced to show the relationship. 
But if one thing cannot be proved to be related to 
another thing, how can each of these be proved to 
be related to a third? 

Pathology has an argument in favor of material- 
ism, for a diseased brain produces a diseased mind 
and a defect in mind is usually traced to some defect 
in the brain. It is argued that as the brain develops 
so the mind develops and the more brain organization 
the more mental content and intelligence. Dr. 
Ormond would argue that unless evolution is posited 
in a spiritual potence no explanation can be given 
of the origin of mind. The real nature of mind is 
that it is aware of itself as mind but cannot be aware 
of itself as brain. Tyndall and another great scien- 
tist, maintain there is no bridge by means of which 
we can connect brain and mind. While it is true 
physical and mental life appear together, advance 
together, fail together, and disappear together, we 
have no evidence that physical energy ever becomes 
mental energy. Thoughts and feelings demand a 
subject and have no meaning apart from the abiding 
and unitary self. Materialism and sensationalism 
try to account for experience without a subject, but 
thoughts and feelings imply a unifying intelligence 
and rational life, a unitary consciousness. Since 
to think is to compare, to unite, thought by its very 
nature must have a single subject to grasp in the 
unity of a single act things compared, distinguished 



no THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

and united. Unless the unitary self grasps both 
premises in a single conscious act in a syllogism there 
can be no conclusion, for the knowledge of the many 
is possible only through the unity of the one. The 
spiritualist says the soul remembers, the materialist 
asserts the brain remembers. If the materialist 
claims that memory depends upon nervous action 
we are left without a unitary consciousness which 
w^ould fall asunder without the unity and identity 
of the subjci^t. Materialism fails to explain the 
bimole facts of consciousness, is depressing and 
paralyzing and suicidal in implications. 

This is materialistic and commercial age and 
materialism has changed education from the purely 
intellectual and cultural side to the industrial and 
vocational activities of life. This new movement 
in education emphasizes the material side of life and 
minimizes truth for truth's sake. According to the 
industrial movement, no knowledge is of any value 
unless it functions in practical and social life and aids 
the individual in accumulating the material wants 
and needs of life. In answer to this new movement 
in education a noted educator writes: "We may well 
turn for a season to a new cult of the habit of reflection, 
of sound and tender feeling and of ethical and aesthet- 
ic insight and appreciation. The Wille zur macht 
will one day be the undoing of democracy unless it is 
guided by a profounder knowledge and serener 
contemplation." Materialism has invaded psychol- 
ogy and the prospective teacher is now studying brain 
cells, neurons and dendrons in the hope that he may 
understand better the mind and be able to give 
intellectual instruction in accordance with this new 
cult. Education is now considered a brain develop- 
ment by the materialistic school rather than a spirit- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 111 

ual process. But the fact is, education is an intellec- 
tual process, the school is a mind unity, teaching is an 
intellectual activity and life is not wholly physical 
and physiological but in the last analysis is spiritual. 
Naturalism is that theory which explains the order 
of the world by efficient causation rather than by 
final cause and accounts for experience by the method 
of natural science. It reduces mental and moral 
processes to the categories of natural science, — mind 
is made quantitative and ethics, a calculus of pleasures. 
Naturalism adopts the dictum of Laplace and main- 
tains that science has no need of a theistic hypothesis. 
It despiritualizes nature and asserts that matter is 
the one absolute reality; it teaches that there is no 
knowledge save scientific knowledge and that this 
knowledge is non-theistic. Tyndall says in speaking 
of this doctrine, "You who have escaped from these 
religions into high-and-dry light of the intellect, may 
deride them; but in so doing you derive accidents of 
form merely, and fail to touch the immovable basis 
of the religious sentiment in the nature of man." 
Naturalism has attempted to destroy teleology and has 
tried to include in its destruction the heart of the 
educational process. For these thinkers, thinking 
is mechanical, teaching, purposeless and education, 
the manipulation of efficient means. Both in nature 
and in education the material is not fundamental but 
rather the teleological and spiritual which underlie 
both nature and education. Both natural law and 
the law of the school are teleological as every hypothe- 
sis presupposes a means to an end and both nature 
and education must conform to the conditions of 
intelligence. In the language of Kant intelligence 
makes the educational process. If we consider 
education from a naturalistic standpoint and do not 



112 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

take into consideration purpose or final cause then 
education is mere training and is as applicable to the 
animal as to the human being. Purpose organizes 
the school, determines the course of study and fixes 
the aim of human life. Since science cannot explain 
the educational process, it is necessary to have a 
metaphysics of education to give us a rational inter- 
pretation of the world, education and life. 

Both nature and the school are considered as a 
mechanism or an organism. If the former, they are 
explained by redistribution of matter and motion; 
if the latter, by an inherent energy seeking an end 
for which they were created . The theory of mechanism 
has been applied to psychology, sociology and educa- 
tion. A complex mental state, a complex social 
order or a complex educational process may each be 
referred to the simple elements which compose it. 
A complex social effect is the resultant of the manifold 
factors which enter into it. A complex educational 
situation is made up, according to the mechanical 
theory by simple educational factors. In nature, 
in society, and in education the simple explains the 
complex and the whole is made up of a unity of the 
parts. Mechanism is a principle of method and in- 
sists upon our analyzing every compound into its 
factors and then by synthesizing the factors construct 
the whole. While mechanism expresses a just demand 
of intelligence it can never explain itself and is the 
method of infinite regress. As we cannot understand 
the nature of the cell by analysis, so we cannot un- 
derstand the nature of the educational process by 
studying its isolated factors. In nature and ^ in 
education a complex of interacting elements is im- 
possible except as dependent upon a basal unity whose 
purpose is the ground of the whole system. We must, 



THE M ETAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 1 13 

therefore, study the whole before the parts for the 
idea of nature or the idea of education determines the 
factors or elements entering into the processes. 
Interaction which underlies the mechanical system 
is itself the free and continuous activity of the infinite. 
We conclude that education cannot be explained by 
any mechanical mode of thought, but must be ex- 
plained from the organic point of view or from the 
view point of some form of teleology. 

Positivism is based upon the positive sciences and 
excludes all forms of speculation. It is allied on one 
side to agnosticism and denies the possibility of the 
knowledge of reality, and allied on the other side to 
phenomenalism which teaches that we cannot know 
either efficient or final causation or anything except 
the relation of coexistence or sequence in which 
sensible phenomena are found. It insists on the or- 
ganization of the data of science, on the value of 
science for practical life and the aid of science as a 
moral and spiritual guide. It confines itself to positive 
scientific facts and has nothing to do with first prin- 
ciples or causation. In so far as the Epicureans 
recognized only that which passes with sense percep- 
tion as a fact but regarded such facts as completely 
certain, their theory may be designated positivism. 
This form of positivism was developed by the empir- 
ical physicians. Observation is considered the basis 
of the physician's art and observation retained in 
memory is regarded as sole essence of his theory. 
Sturm, the pedagogue, determined the task for edu- 
cation by bringing the individual to the point where 
he knows things. The settling of facts by sense ex- 
perience is for Hume intuitive certainty. There is 
no knowledge of what things are, and we can only know 
what we perceive by the senses. Comte worked out 



114 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

his positive system of the sciences and claimed human 
knowledge had to do with only the reciprocal relations 
of phenomena and that it is irrational to talk of first 
causes and ultimate ends. 

The doctrine of positivism has put emphasis in the 
school on science, object lessons, nature, study, and 
perceptual training in general. The Pestalozzian 
principles of beginning with the senses, of reducing 
every subject to its elements and the modern move- 
ment of nature study is but an emphasis of the doc- 
trine of positivism. The emphasis upon science rather 
than upon the humanities had its origin in the Comtean 
philosophy of facts and has modified the modern 
curriculum by substituting for the languages the posi- 
tive facts of science. 

The Psychological Group. 

Sensationalism, associationism, intellectualism, and 
voluntarism constitute the psychological group of 
philosophical systems which have had a marked 
effect upon the theory and practice of education. 
That doctrine which teaches that all knowledge orig- 
inates in sensations, and that all cognitive and reflec- 
tive ideas can be traced to elementary sensations is 
called sensationalism. The content of consciousness 
is derived from sense-perceptions and the higher 
activities of mind are the results left by impressions 
originally made upon the mind by external objects. 
These unconnected impressions are organized into 
mind terms by the laws of association. The maxim 
of this doctrine is nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit 
in sensu. 

While Hobbes was the founder of this doctrine of 
psychical life, Locke taught that sensations give us 
knowledge of the external world, and reflection, of 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 115 

the internal world. John Stuart Mill says matter is 
the permanent possibiUties of sensation and mind is 
a series of feelings with the possibilities of feelings. 
This class of thinkers believes that consciousness is 
made up of units of feelings or impressions bound 
together by the laws of association. Sensationalism 
does not provide for a unitary self and considers a 
judgment, a grouping of impressions. ^ The fact is an 
impression or unit of consciousness is not possible 
except in and through an abiding self. An impres- 
sion or a sensation cannot become anything for in- 
telligence only on the supposition of a constitutive, 
organizing, classifying activity of thought. Instead 
of the sensations being elements out of which the in- 
tellect is formed, they are really products of the in- 
tellect. The objection to sensationalism is that these 
impressions left to themselves are not intelligible and 
mean nothing except through an immanent activity 
of the mind. It is generally thought that sensations 
are the raw material of knowlege and that the mind 
is constructed by grouping impressions, but the truth 
is the self makes the impressions. 

Sensationalism has had a marked effect upon 
education as it has been responsible for introducing 
into the school object lessons, nature study, concrete 
facts and elementary science in the grades and has 
given interest and value to the revised high school 
and college courses of study. Sense training has been 
emphasized in drawing, botany, physiology, geogra- 
phy and many other subjects. In fact there is a 
sense phase in history and sense percepts to be learned 
in mathematics and other subjects of study. It is 
thought that the child lives in the realm of the senses 
and that spelling, reading and arithmetic must be 
taught by appealing to sense data. Mensuration, 



116 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

square and cube root should be taught by such ap- 
paratus that will lead the individual from the sense 
impressiom to the more abstract principle. In 
reading, history and other subjects pictures are used 
to represent the primal elements of knowledge of these 
subjects. A chemist with his retort, the botanist 
with his plant, the anatomist with his skeleton and 
the geologist with his trilobite are examples of sense 
training. A close study of the educational process 
reveals the fact that much work is education is sense 
training and that sensation is one of the principal 
avenues to knowledge. 

Experimental and physiological psychology have 
carefully studied the senses and have added valuable 
knowledge in sense training and sense knowledge. 
We understand the law of the relation between the 
stimulus and the sensation and the possibilities 
and limitations of sense knowledge. The hot and 
cold spots on the surface of the skin, tests in hearing 
and seeing, after-images, color sensations, etc., indicate 
the extent to which the senses have been studied. 
These tests have had a practical bearing upon the 
problems of the school room and have been constant 
factors in the solution of many difficulties in education. 
While it is true that the original doctrine of sensation 
cannot be accepted (that is, a sensation without a 
unitary self), it is also true that sense perception has 
played an important part in educational work. 

Associationalism is intimately related to sensation- 
alism as it furnishes the bond by means of which the 
sensations are organized into knowledge. Hobbes in 
his study of empirical psychical activities became the 
father of associational psychology. In studying the 
internal mechanism of the psychical activities and the 
development of the higher out of the lower states, 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 117 

Hartley uses the term association. As previously 
discussed Hume gave us the laws of association. 

These laws of association have been of inestimable 
value in education. The teacher using the law of 
contiguity in geography has a valuable method of 
teaching these subjects. Comparison and contrast are 
pedagogical principles used in all subjects. In noting 
likenesses and differences of North and South America, 
of pentramite and trilobite, of Jefferson and Hamilton, 
of Longfellow and Whittier, the teacher uses a familiar 
and fundamental law of psychology. The same law 
is followed in distinguishing the sign from the thing 
signified, the word and its meaning, and the sensuous 
picture and its psychical significance. The many 
figures of speech, pun, metaphor, simile, etc., are 
examples of the use of the law of association which 
shows how intimate a philosophical principle is related 
to the actual work of the school. In thinking things 
that are found together in space and time, one thing 
recalls another ; the cause recalls the effect ; ideas recall 
similar or dissimilar ideas. Many philosophers have 
tried to reduce the laws of association to one law called 
redintegration. This law when formulated says when 
any part of a previous state recurs in experience the 
mind tends to complete the past experience. The 
laws of associations are descriptions not explanations 
of the reproductive process. They classify experience 
and show the movement of the mind by which it 
remembers facts. 

That theory that makes the intellectual function 
of the mind more fundamental than feeling and will 
is designated intellectualism. It makes the ultimate 
principle of the world thought or reason and holds that 
this ultimate reality is knowable. T. H. Green would 
say that all reality consists in intellectual relations. 



118 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

According to Plotinus and Hegel beauty is the shining 
of an idea through a sensible medium. In the Socratic 
doctrine, that knowledge is virtue, we have a species 
of intellectualism. 

The Greek mind was intellectual, the Roman 
and Hebrew mind, volitional. Voluntarism teaches 
that the will is the essential element of mind and that 
it is the ultimate reality of the world. (Schopenhauer). 
In intellectualism we will what the intellect says is good 
but in voluntarism the choice of will determines what 
is good. In the former, final blessedness is attained 
through contemplation; in the latter, blessedness is 
an activity. This principle is seen in Kant's primacy 
of the practical over pure reason. According to the 
Hegelian conception, the world is the development 
of the idea. 

During the last century education has been in- 
tellectual, but modern education is putting emphasis 
on action or doing. Whatever may be said of the 
doctrine of learning to do by doing, learning is^ an 
intellectual process, a process of transmuting into 
mind the thought and spirit of the world. While 
it is true we have an emotional and volitional nature, 
still education must be in the very nature of the case 
largely intellectual. To understand the fundamental 
branches of knowledge, languages and literature, 
mathematics, history, philosophy or even the metaphys- 
ics of education, we do not use the will so much as 
the intellect, and the intellect must still remain the 
basis of all educational work. In the modern move- 
ment of industrial education, manual training, domes- 
tic science, we have an emphasis on voluntarism but 
still to know the elements of even these subjects re- 
quires intellectual activity. Intelligence still seems 
supreme in education. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 119 

The Epistemological Group. 

Four of the principle systems of philosophy which 
discuss the nature and origin of knowledge are empir- 
icism, phenomalism, rationalism and agnosticism. 
The problem of epistemology is closely related to the 
problem of education, since one of the chief aims of 
education is the attainment of knowledge. In em- 
piricism truth is to be found in sense experience, and 
apriori knowledge is considered impossible. Accord- 
ing to Locke all knowledge is caused by actions of 
objects upon the mind; it may be said that English 
philosophy has continued to be empirical during the 
greater part of the nineteenth century. Empiricism 
denies innate ideas and is in harmony with the scien- 
tific method of observation and induction. Nativism 
differs from empiricism in holding that knowledge is 
not due wholly to experience but partly due to native 
constitution of the mind. This native constitution 
is not due to inheritance so much as to incidental 
variation. As empiricism has had the same effect 
upon education as sensationalism it will not be 
necessary to discuss the relation between empiricism 
and education. 

Phenomalism teaches that knowledge is limited to 
phenomena and that it is impossible to understand 
reality or the thing in itself. Kant says there are 
two worlds : the phenomenal and the noumenal and 
that the former only can be grasped by thought. 
However, modern thinkers tell us there is a causal 
world behind the phenomenal world which can be 
grasped by thought or reason. Others teach that 
phenomenon is a manifestation of reality and in 
knowing phenomena we know reality. In Kantian 
language, "All our representations are no doubt re- 



120 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

f erred to the understanding to some sort of object 
and as phenomena are nothing but representations, 
the understanding refers them to a something as the 
object of our sense intuition." 

Spencer gave an impulse to scientific education and 
was instrumental in the schools studying natural 
phenomena. From the time of Rousseau, education 
began to change from a study of books to a study of 
things. Since the study of natural phenomena has a 
direct bearing upon practical and commercial life it 
has had a prominent place in the modern curriculum. 
It is thought that knowledge of phenomena is more 
important than a knowledge of the humanities, and, 
therefore, science has become an attractive subject 
in all grades of school work. 

Rationalism is the doctrine that reason is an inde- 
pendent source of knowledge distinct from sense per- 
ception and having a higher authority. It asserts 
that the prerogative of the intellect is supreme in all 
matters of truth. Democritus and Plato both looked 
to thought for knowledge of what is, for the knowledge 
of the true and real is essentially an idea . In regard to 
the origin of knowledge, rationalism makes the stat- 
ment that much knowledge exists through the think- 
ing of the human mind. It is that knowledge that 
is gained through the syllogism rather than through 
experience. Kant attempted to reconcile rational 
and empirical knowledge and said there are two stems 
of knowledge, sense and understanding. 

Education is still dominated by rationalism. The 
primary truths, axioms and principles of mathematics 
are apriori or rather than aposteriori. Unless the 
truths of mathematics are rational they are impossible. 
Rationalism in education emphasizes the thinking 
process. The student must learn that thought thinks 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 121 

thought and thought recognizes itself as the creative 
energy of man's products and in the absolute sense, 
the whole world. 

The unity between the mind and the thought in the 
sentence, ideas in history, or thought relations in the 
human body is a mental or organic unity and is based 
upon the rationalistic interpretation of the world. 

Agnosticism is a word coined by Professor Huxley to 
express the doctrine that man by his very nature is 
incapable of forming trustworthy conclusions of ulti- 
mate reality. It teaches that human knowledge is 
limited to experience and that the mind cannot know 
anything of the real nature of things. It is really 
an exposition of the bounds of human thought and 
knowledge and claims that the absolute is unknowable. 
Matter and mind are phenomenal manifestations of 
one unknowable substance for the natural man can 
know nothing of the divine nature. To speak of 
knowledge of the real is to Spencer an undemonstrable 
assumption, but for some of the Neo-Hegelians it is 
possible to unify the finite mind and the Absolute 
Mind. Kant would have us say we can know the 
world as it is constructed through the determinations 
of sense data by the forms of consciousness. We can 
know only the phenomenal but the noumenal is 
beyond the grasp of thought. We can know matter 
in the terms of consciousness and consciousness in 
terms of matter, but we can know neither in itself. 
Spencer's doctrine is we cannot know the ultimate 
scientific and religious ideas and the relativity of 
knowledge, but he knows enough about them to know 
they are unknowable and that the unknowable is a 
Power. 

The young student is inclined to be agnostic in not 
being able to know what is to be known. He soon 



122 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

realizes the existence of things is different from the 
knowledge of them and that all we know of the outer 
world is knowledge built up in the mind itself. The 
only cure for agnosticism is to realize that the outer 
world is rational to the core and has in it an element 
akin to our own nature. The knowability of a thing 
implies its rationality, and the possibility of a uni- 
fication of the terminal aspects of a unitary reality. 
The scientific attitude is frequently the agnostic at- 
titude for all we know is what we can see, or put 
in Tennysonian phraseology, "Knowledge is of 
things we see." The student should distinguish the 
knowing mind from the believing mind. Again 
Tennyson asserts that the agnostic is right in teaching 
the absolute is unknowable, but is wrong in saying 
that the human mind is shut out from the eternal 
principle of things. Faith transcends reason and 
when the human mind cannot know, it may still 
believe. Since the eternal truth is so difficult to 
attain, many become agnostic and think that reality 
lies beyond the grasp of human knowledge. Frequent- 
ly the young scientist loses his faith in God because 
he cannot know him through the ordinary tests of 
knowledge. He cannot find Him by the scalpel, by 
the telescope, nor by the microscope and concludes 
He is unknowable. 

The Ethical Group. 

The principles of education are derived from psy- 
chology and philosophy but the end of education has 
its origin in ethics. The following systems of ethical 
thought constitute the ethical group, hedonism, utili- 
tarianism, intuitionalism, and transcendentalism. 
Hedonism is the philosophy of happiness and morality 
is reduced to the pursuit of happiness. Aristippus 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 123 

claimed that happiness is the state of pleasure which 
springs from the satisfied will. Epicurus made pleas- 
ure the highest good but prized mental joys higher 
than physical enjoyments. Pleasure is the good and 
the function of educational ethics is to give us a 
method of realizing the good. It is held by some that 
pleasure is the only rational and possible aim of action. 
The Hedonistic view is usually abandoned for the 
eudemonistic theory, which makes happiness an 
abiding well-being rather than momentary pleasures. 
No ethical writer objects to happiness but the problem 
is to determine what true happiness is. 

School duties must be regulated in such a way as 
to create school happiness, for no teacher is success- 
ful who does not make the children happy. Happi- 
ness ethics is school ethics and the greatest happiness 
to the greatest number is a pedagogical maxim worthy 
of consideration. Hedonism introduces athletics, 
games, clubs, literary societies and other sports which 
have for their aim the promulgation of the happiness 
and pleasure of the student body. A college president 
recently stated that not many years ago there were 
but fev/ boys who went to college without a serious 
purpose, but now it is fashionable to go to college 
on account of the attractions and sports of college 
life. 

High schools, colleges and universities spend much 
time and money in providing for the happiness side 
of education, which has become an important factor 
in modern educational life. 

Utilitarianism is that ethical theory which teaches 
that conduct should be that which produces the 
greatest amount of happiness to all. This definition 
was formulated by Bentham as the greatest possible 
happiness to the greatest possible number. Windle- 



124 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

band interprets the above principle as follows: "An 
action is the more pleasing in proportion as it produces 
more happiness and in proportion as the number of 
men who can share this happiness becomes greater." 
The utilitarians would object to any action which is 
not conducive to universal happiness. They lay 
great stress upon social and political activity. The 
utilitarian doctrine discusses the good rather than 
the right and regards ethical ideas as the result of ex- 
perience. According to one thinker conduct should be 
regulated and harmonized with the pleasures and 
sensibilities, and according to another pleasures should 
be guided by prudence. 

This doctrine of ethics is applied to the field of 
legislation, political reform and education where the 
greatest happiness principle is the only standard of 
action. Bentham's principle was that every individ- 
ual is to count for one and no one to count for more 
than one. It is the function of the recitation in 
school to do the greatest good to the greatest number ; 
it is unpedagogical to spend too much time with the 
dullard or with the brilliant student, but the teacher 
should aim to give to the greatest number of students 
the greatest possible good. In order to secure the 
greatest possible good the Batavia system uses a 
second teacher in each class room who assists the 
greatest possible number in order that the principal 
teacher may realize the aim set forth byBentham. 
The teaching process itself may aid in attaining this 
result by securing perfect, organic, spiritual unity 
between teacher and pupil. 

Schliermacher has shown that there are three lead- 
ing moral ideas: the good, duty, and virtue. Intui- 
tionalism declares that duty is the first fact in moral 
obligation and that the categorical imperative is the 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 125 

guide. Without giving any reason it declares Thou 
shalt or Thou shalt not. Instead of realizing the good 
this theory takes into consideration a law to be obeyed. 
The basal principle of ethics is better expressed in the 
notion of duty than in the notion of the good. The 
duty ethics is distinct from the good ethics and is a 
better guide to action. Kant's ethical principle, "Act 
so that the maxim of thy conduct may be fit to be 
universal law." Sedgwick defines intuitionalism as 
the method that recognizes rightness as a quality of 
inherent action. He associates intuitionalism with 
moral perfection and says right conduct is determined 
by the actions themselves without considering their 
consequences. The pragmatist maintains that moral- 
ity cannot exist without considering its conse- 
quences. While it is difficult to distinguish the act 
from its consequences intuitionalism puts the stress 
on the act rather than on the consequences. That 
method of ethics which takes into consideration the 
perfection of conscious existence, coincides with the 
ordinary form of intuitionalism. 

In the school the pupil has duties to the teacher, 
duties to other pupils and duties to themselves. It 
is the pupil's duty to himself to offer to the school 
atmosphere a clean body, to perform assigned tasks 
willingly and to assist in elevating the moral tone of 
the school. He must at all times obey the law of 
truth, the law of the school and live in harmony with 
the law of reason inherent in the world. However, 
the test of the pupil's moral nature lies in his relation- 
ship with his fellow pupils. He must live in accord- 
ance with the moral ideal and in harmony with the 
oughtness within. 

Transcendentalism assumes that moral conscious- 
ness is a phase of the eternal consciousness and that 



126 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

the world, man, nature, history, science, art, religion, 
and all being are manifestations of the universal 
reason. That conduct is best which most perfectly 
mirrors the eternal principle. It is the duty and priv- 
ilege of each person to realize all the potentialities 
in his nature and to transform his real nature into an 
actualized condition. The principle of this philoso- 
phy is, Be a person and respect others as persons. 
This is the doctrine of self-realization or perfection 
whose keynote is personality. 

In self-realization we have a direct application of a 
metaphysical principle to the problem of purpose in 
education. This is an instance where the controlling 
factor in education is drawn directly from metaphys- 
ics. The pupil is constantly struggling to realize 
his true worth, to change his potence into actuality. 
The pupil in obeying the inherent law of the school and 
of the world is fusing his rationality with the spiritual 
order of things and thereby attaining peace, unity 
and harmony with the world order. The aim of life 
as well as the aim of education is perfection, rational 
freedom. Education aims at the realized self which 
is not possible in isolation but only in and through 
persons other than himself. 

Unless a principle of education is at the same time 
a principle of life it is not worthy of study or consider- 
ation. Self-realization is the law of life which means 
that we sacrifice the lower life and, therefore, the life 
of a spiritual being is a continual dying. Only as the 
lower self dies can the higher self be realized. ^ The 
individual must die to an isolated life, a life of imme- 
diate desires in order that he may live the spiritual 
life, the universal life which belongs to a self-conscious 
being. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 127 
The Theological Group. 

This group of philosophical systems orients the 
educator and gives him a world view of things. If 
philosophy means anything to the educator, it gives 
him a perspective and outlook upon the world which 
relates his activities to the activities of the objective 
order. These four systems discuss the world as a 
necessity, these transcendence of divine existence and 
the world identified with the divine reason. These 
systems gradually lead the thinker to theism which 
must give education, universal significance and show 
how the cosmic processes are related to the education- 
al processes. 

Atheism discredits reason, destroys duties and 
responsibility and makes logical thought impossible. 
In any system of necessity there is no guilt nor inno- 
cence, no merit nor demerit, no obligation nor re- 
sponsibility, for atheism rejects consciousness and 
becomes a mental outlaw. Dr. William T. Harris 
relates atheism to education and says, "Sense per- 
ception is atheistic. It finds each thing sufficient 
for itself, — that is to say, self-existent and yet without 
self-activity." 

Deism regards the world as needing only to be 
created and claims that it is thereafter able to exist 
entirely on its own account. God is a Deus ex machina 
and is needed only as a first cause or as a prime mover. 
It may be compared to the school which is organized 
by the teacher and supposed to be able to operate 
itself without the presence of its originator. The 
school has no more power to exist within itself than 
does the world and hence deism is true neither educa- 
tionally nor cosmically. 

In pantheism the world is regarded as part of the 



128 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

Absolute who is either the background of all existence 
or who emits all existence from himself. It does not 
distinguish the absolute from the world but makes 
it a part of one eternal being. As all the waves are a 
part of the ocean and all thoughts of the school eman- 
ate from the teacher, so all existence springs out of the 
fullness of the eternal one. Metaphysics shows that 
reality is never a stuff but an agent, not substantiaHty 
but causality. Since this agent is unitary, it is im- 
possible to identify, according to some thinkers, it 
with the world. In pantheism the absolute absorbs 
all things unto himself, but the teacher needs a theism 
in which there is a living and immanent reason in 
whom we live, move and have our being. Dr. 
Harris connects pantheism with education as follows: 
"The understanding is pantheistic; it finds everything 
finite and relative and dependent on an absolute that 
transcends all qualities and attributes an unknown 
and unknowable persistent force which is the negative 
of all particular forces." 

The Nous of Anaxogaras laid the foundation for a 
theistic conception of the world. Theism believes 
in the personality, transcendence and immanence of 
the absolute. From the nature of the world we are 
led to believe in the existence of an underlying prin- 
ciple which is self-determined. The order in the world 
implies intelligence and the theist refers the law and 
order in phenomena to a hidden power which is ration- 
al and personal. In a study of organic life we find 
an activity according to a law that activity refers to 
a future purpose or end. If the supreme intelligence 
manifests itself in organic life, it also manifests it- 
self in organic life as grains, ores, etc. The teleolog- 
ical argument is based on purpose-Hke adaptations 
found in the world. The order in the world, these 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 129 

adaptations, and finite intelligence can be explained 
only upon the theory that there exists a supreme in- 
telligence in the world. The marks of design in 
nature indicate intelligence and a forward look to the 
realization of a definite end. 

T. H. Green maintains that a system of relations 
indicate an intelligence as its source and intelligence 
which has in its notion unity, identity and causality 
must be traced back to a divine thought. The theist 
insists that the world began in intelligence, that it 
exists in intelligence and its rationality is found in 
the fact that meaning or thought exist at both ends of 
the series. To solve the problem of theism we must 
have free intelligence as the eternal principle and the 
finite knower who is able to unify his thoughts with 
the thought immanent in the world. Metaphysics 
makes cosmic intelligence a necessary implication 
in thought and knowledge and hence the thought 
process as well as the educational process run parallel 
to the divine process. Since personality means self- 
knowledge, self-control, self direction, self-determina- 
tion and intelligence the conclusion is that the eternal 
principle of the world is personal. 

It will thus be seen that there is a parallelism between 
the educational process and the world process. 
Since education is a rational process and since we have 
proved that the world is shot through with reason, 
the inference is that the two processes are terminal 
aspects of a unitary principle. The problem of the 
metaphysics of education is to trace the spiritual 
principle through the world, through the school, 
through the teaching process, through mind and life 
and show that this universal reason furnishes guid- 
ance and direction for the whole scheme of education. 
This hidden power running through the world is the 



130 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

basis of all subject-matter in the curriculum, the 
immanent principle of mind activity, and the organic 
principle which binds teacher and pupil together. 
Theism is a necessary philosophy upon which to 
build a rational system of education. Dr. Harris 
again shows the relation between metaphysics and 
education: "Reason is theistic because it finds self- 
activity or self-determination and identifies this with 
mind." 

The Modern Group. 

Modern thought is now discussing, among others, 
the four following systems of philosophy, evolution- 
ism, realism, humanism and pragmatism. As evolu- 
tion has already been discussed we will merely give 
a few evolutionary principles which have a bearing 
upon education; namely, the significance of infancy 
and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. 
According to John Fiske infancy is prolonged that the 
child may acquire aptitudes necessary for an adult 
life. There is perhaps a gain in not inheriting ac- 
quired characteristics, for we thereby avoid many 
undesirable inheritances. A serious study of evolu- 
tion in relation to education will account for many 
principles, processes and methods of education. In 
applying a theory of evolution to education we are 
dealing with a chain of facts, with a series of empiri- 
cal tendencies which are bound together by efficient 
causes rather than by final cause. However, a true 
study of the metaphysics of education will give us 
ideas and purposes which guide educational procedure. 
These aims, as we have said, are supplied by ethics 
rather than by philosophy. Such an inquiry would 
lead us into a discussion of the ultimate ideas of human 
life and the underlying principles of knowledge and 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 131 

existence. It is the purpose of philosophy to try to 
find the meaning of things by considering them mem- 
bers of one organic totaUty. 

ReaUsm, called the common sense philosophy, is the 
doctrine that things do not depend for their existence 
upon our knowing them, and that they may continue 
to exist without anyone thinking them. The realist 
would say that truth implies reality but does not 
create it, and that the real things are the objects per- 
ceived immediately. It may be asked, do we per- 
ceive the object or do we perceive a mental event in 
consciousness? Some would say that the thoughts 
we have of red are red thoughts, and the thoughts we 
have of fire are hot thoughts. Others would say 
there is no redness in the stimulation that gives us the 
sensation of red but merely a certain wave length of 
light. There is no objective sweetness in the sugar 
which calls forth the sensation of sweetness but a 
certain chemical action produces the sensation of 
sweetness. The problem in questions of this kind is, 
whether the sensation is intra-mental or extra-mental. 
One leading realist says we cannot imagine ourselves 
away from objects without them vanishing from our 
grasp. This statement implies that the mind is a 
factor in sensation and perception and the thought 
of a thing is different from the thing itself. Yet the 
realists insist that a thing is, was or will be what it 
is as it is experienced. Realism does not agree with 
idealism, "no object without a subject," but main- 
tains that knowledge and existence are separate 
entities and that the real is external to and indepen- 
dent of thought. It is true that objects known do 
not depend for their existences upon the knower but 
it is equally true that our experience are all based 
upon reality. 



132 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

Objects of experience have existence independent of 
consciousness by which they are represented. Real- 
ism maintains mind and matter have only superficial 
reality but both are expressions of an underlying law 
unitary in character and from the Spencerian stand- 
point unknow^n to us. Spencer knows enough about 
the unknown to call it one but still says it belongs to 
the field of the unknowable. What we know of the 
outer world is through sensation and perception and 
if these mental activities could continue without the 
action of the world, the world might cease to exist 
and we would have the mental activity. The idealist 
would say to the realist that the mind builds the 
world out of its own states of consciousness. The 
realist allows only sensations for the material for 
world construction. The ideaUst would add apriori 
ideas but both thinkers must construct the objective 
out of the subjective. Both the idealist and realist 
believe in an objective ground of sensation and do 
not differ in the fact of reality but in the nature of 
reality. The realist's position is, the world is a com- 
plex of substantial things endowed with forces, having 
the capability of change. These exist apart from 
thought and when we perceive them we recognize 
them but add nothing to them. The idealist thinks 
under the law of substance and attribute and explains 
the uniformity of existence by divine purpose. When 
the realist says the qualities are in the object apart 
from experience, he means they are there potentially 
for any one who fulfils the conditions. The idealist 
would say that light, sound and odor are contribu- 
tions of the mind and apart from the mind there 
would be nothing luminous, resonant nor odorous. 
The realist claims that the primary qualities of matter 
are independent of thought, but the idealist answers 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 133 

size, extension and distance have merely a subjective 
existence. Dr. Woodbridge makes consciousness as 
natural a growth as the tree, and that its existence 
and growth depend upon the same natural laws as 
other objects depend upon for their existence. 

Education has felt the influence of realism in the 
Spencerian attitude toward knowledge. In his scheme 
of education science is the most important subject to 
be studied. The child is introduced to the world of 
reality and studies objects rather than descriptions of 
objects. The philosophy of realism seems to be in 
harmony with the scientific and commercial age. 
Education now teaches the individual to seek physi- 
cal freedom rather than spiritual freedom and to 
understand and control the forces of nature. The 
industrial and vocational idea in education should be 
modified by the philosophical attitude which seeks 
reality not in sensation and perception but in a 
universal principle of reason. 

Humanism is a philosophy dealing with human 
beings struggling for human experience by means of 
the human mind. It teaches that man is the measure 
of his own experiences and that the external world 
depends upon human experience and that philosophy 
must discuss the problems of life. Humanism is not 
in accordance with intellectualism but with the larger 
life of man and emphasizes not the academic man but 
the man in general. If pragmatism is voluntaristic, 
humanism is personalistic ; the former studies the 
world as a process; the latter, discusses cosmic per- 
sonality and its kinship with man. 

Humanism is not content to discuss rational intel- 
ligence alone but is interested in the whole life of man ; 
it has no interest in logic apart from life and person- 
ality. Humanism sets forth the doctrine that truth 



134 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

is human and that it cannot exist without human 
effort and human action and that it must be related 
to human interests and human purposes. It does 
not discuss the correspondence of the concept with 
the object but investigates the needs of human life. 
An exponent of humanism says, "Truth and reality 
grow for us together in a single process which is never 
one of bringing the mind into relation with a funda- 
mentally alien reality but always one of approving 
and extending an already existing system which we 
know. Truth is a species of valuation, a label we 
put on our experiences to make them valuable to 
life." Humanism believes in the purposiveness of 
human thought and human experience and while it 
has something in common with idealism it is more 
intimately related with realism and holds that real- 
ity is experience, and that all mental life is purposive. 
It explains both realism and idealism by noting their 
genesis and separateness from human action. Per- 
sonal idealism does not make an abstraction from 
personality but includes the personalistic element 
which is so essential in knowledge. Humanism is 
both idealistic and realistic and takes into consider- 
ation both the human and divine. 

The humanist would base his study on the Hellenic 
axiom, "Know Thyself" and that "man is the meas- 
ure of all things" rather than upon an eternal and 
immutable ideal. He demands that man's integral 
nature should be made the basis of philosophy and 
that the human being is constantly improving and 
making truth coextensive with life. Humanism as a 
method of thought points to the ultimate reality of 
human action and freedom and becomes an attractive 
philosophy of life. The humanistic ideal has its 
origin in the human standpoint, must be related to 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 135 

actual life and although having an influence upon 
human existence the idea must be realized by the 
development of the total life. In fact an ideal must 
be realized in experience, must be applicable to the 
actual and must not apply to some ethereal entity but 
to some real human want, need or aspiration. 

True education is humanistic and deals with the 
whole experience of the individual. It has its origin 
in human life, its method in human activity and its 
aim in human perfection. Education does not deal 
with the intellect alone nor with any one phase of 
human life, but considers the total single self. This 
new philosophy does not consider knowledge and truth 
as perfected but in process of making. The ultimate 
reality which this philosophy discusses is not an eter- 
nal reason but an eternal experience. It emphasizes 
the teleological factor in human life and announces 
in favor of personalism rather than in any species 
of impersonalism. The ideals of humanism are not 
on the border land of dreams but are in and through 
human activity itself. It transforms the ideal of the 
absolutist into a human ideal that is related to the 
actual concrete experiences of human life. Humanism 
unites the best in idealism and the best in realism and 
formulates a philosophy of life and education which 
harmonizes with the actual concrete processes of the 
school and of life. 

"Pragmatism will seem a special application of 
Humanism to the theory of knowledge" writes Schiller. 
It may be psychological, logical or metaphysical. 
Psychological pragmatism, Dr. Calkins says, is a 
recognition that the purposive character of mental 
life must influence and pervade our remotely cognitive 
activity. It lays stress on the non-cognitive 
aspects of experience. Logical pragmatism teaches 



136 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

that the concept of the use, value or consequences of 
a thing forms a part of the conception of it, and in 
another form, forms the sole conception of it. Many 
would agree in the former notion of pragmatism but 
few would admit that the use of a thing makes up its 
whole conception. In fact the conception of a thing, 
of a moral act, of a tree, or of an engine is more than 
its use or consequence. Metaphysical pragmatism, 
according to Miss Calkins, claims that reality is to 
be defined in terms of a progressively unfolding 
experience. 

The following are the seven formulations of prag- 
matism, according to Schiller: (1) Truths are logical 
values: (2) The truth of an assertion depends upon 
its application; (3) The meaning of a rule lies in its 
application; (4) All meaning depends upon purpose; 
(5) All mental life is purposive. (6) A systematic 
protest against all ignoring of the purposiveness of 
actual knowledge; (7) A conscious application of 
epistemology (or logic) of a teleological psychology 
which implies, ultimately a voluntaristic metaphysics. 
Pragmatism identifies logic with functional psychology, 
objects to realism and a priori knowledge and believes 
in a reciprocal determination of thought and reaHty. 
It defines truth in terms of relativity and change and 
maintains that reality is constantly evolving, or all 
things flow as Heraclitus asserts. The pragmatic wri- 
ters discuss the teleological phase of empirical thought 
and claim that we must look forward and not back- 
ward to the real meaning of an idea. The value of an 
idea depends upon its function and a value of a doc- 
trine of education or of life depends upon its successful 
operation. Dr. Dewey says the essence of an idea 
is never fully comprehended until both its whence 
and its whither are known. We must understand 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 137 

an idea both prospectively and retrospectively in 
order to get its full meaning. Both the pragmatist 
and apriorist maintain that all knowledge must have 
its foundation in the world of concrete facts. It is 
true that thought passes through fact but it is 
also true that thought finds itself in the realm of 
fact. The pragmatist's contention is that reality 
is dynamic and that the mind is created by phenomena 
and is not different from the object which it thinks. 
The world is our own making. Without us nothing 
is made which is made says Schiller. This doctrine 
sets forth the idea that thought and its object can 
be reduced to unity and the unity takes place in 
experience. It claims that there is also a connection 
between thought and action, but how to explain this 
connection is not clear. If an idea is apriori it has 
no connection with an object and can only fit an 
object when the object makes the idea. This is in 
the realm in which Kant unified the sense world and 
the world of understanding, therefore, rationalism 
must necessarily include empiricism. 

The synthetic unity of apperception is the prin- 
ciple by means of which ideas are welded together 
into an organic whole. In having an interest in a 
situation we construct reality and the union of the 
elements of a judgment is an expression of this pur- 
pose. The doctrine of the pragmatist is that every 
judgment reconstructs reality and that knowledge 
is constantly growing. Cognitions are teleological 
and all knowledge functions in behalf of our needs. 
The meaning of an idea is revealed in action or as 
Dr. Royce says, an idea is a plan of action, and a fact 
is the fulfilment of the plan. If an idea never 
attains its designed purpose there is no completed 
fact but still the idea is constantly becoming fact. 



138 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

While it is true that thought is instrumental and 
that a judgment has a practical use, but still the more 
fundamental use is just to be true. The crux of the 
pragmatist's theory is that if an idea be instrumental, 
how can it at the same time be functional? Accord- 
ing to the James-Lange theory we do not act because 
we think but we think because we act. The needs 
determine the ideas rather than the idea determines 
the need. Pragmatism is grounded in evolution and 
has merely restated the problem rather than origin- 
ated a new doctrine. The pragmatist never tires 
in telling us that the idea of the infinite are apriori, 
cannot arise in the finite whose knowledge begins 
with experience. The pragmatic adherent would 
say further that there is an absolute perfection toward 
which the universe struggles but the human mind is 
not able to grasp absolute truth. The goal of human 
endeavor is beyond us but we are nevertheless moving 
toward it. Unless man has some knowledge by which 
he can get some insight into absolute intelligence how 
does he know he is moving toward absolute truth? 

Pragmatism would have the educator to develop 
the volitional and emotional nature of the individual 
as well as the intellectual. It teaches that knowledge 
is of no value unless it functions in life. It has a 
tendency to disparage the cultural side of education 
and lays greater stress upon the practical side. 
Herbert Spencer in his discussion on Moral Education 
was the first perhaps to apply the doctrine of conse- 
quences in an educational way. He asserts that when 
a child commits a wrong act that he must suffer the 
consequences and that the nature of a moral act does 
not depend upon the intention but upon the conse- 
quences. This is the pragmatic theory of conse- 
quences applied to education. The educator, however, 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 139 

is not willing to accept the statement that the con- 
sequences of a thing make up its sole conception for 
a child may do a wrong act in school without having 
any detrimental consequences and yet the act from 
the very intention is immoral and hence this doctrine 
of ethics does nor harmonize with the nature of edu- 
cation. Again the teacher is not willing to accept 
the proposition that the truth of an assertion depends 
upon its application, for it may be true or false 
without any application. The pragmatic axiom, that 
the meaning of a rule lies in its application is a prac- 
tical principle applied daily in grammar, arithmetic 
and other subjects. The meaning of the rule of cube 
root lies in its application. Pragmatism has made a 
contribution to education in putting stress upon the 
purposive. It is impossible to think of a school or a 
process of teaching without involving the idea of 
end or purpose. 

The teacher is not willing again to accept the fact 
that truth is in the making, for there are some im- 
mutable truths of mathematics and language which 
are made rather than in the making. The forward 
look in the pragmatic doctrine which depends upon 
evolution and which is as old as Aristotle, is a valuable 
contribution to nature and education. The educator 
cannot agree with Schiller that the world is our owi» 
making unless that world is an epistemological world. 
Furthermore the unity of thought and thing does 
not take place in experience but must take place in 
thought. The unity of the world is possible by 
presupposing a divine reason which organizes man, 
nature, and God into an organic whole. Education 
cannot accept the pragmatic statement that an idea 
is revealed in action for many ideas of mathematics 
and science have little to do with action. As prag- 



140 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

matism has its origin in evolution and as evolution 
and idealism are basic principles in education we, 
therefore, conclude that pragmatism has some edu- 
cational value. 

The Absolute Group. 

Perhaps the best interpretation of the problems of 
education is found in some combination of the phil- 
osophical systems of this group. It is claimed in 
this thesis that the underlying principle of education 
is monistic, spiritualistic, personalistic and idealistic. 
The term monism was first used by WolfT in his dis- 
cussion of the relation of body and mind in which he 
designated those thinkers who acknowledge only one 
principle. It is the doctrine which reduces the world 
to a unitary reality which the Milesians called water, 
fire or air; Anaxagoras, nous; Plato, The Good; Hegel, 
Idea and Schopenhauer, Will. Spinoza makes the 
one reality substance. ''Quod in se est et per se con- 
cipitury The philosophy of Spencer is monistic and 
mind and matter are manifestations of an underlying 
reality unknown to the human mind. Since the 
human mind is a unity it constantly seeks for a unitary 
principle in the world which in the beginning of phil- 
osophical speculation was material and w^hich has 
become more and more ideal and spiritual. For 
Fichte the world is made up of self and a not-self and 
ultimate reality is an absolute I. This absolute self 
is possible in a universe of finite selves and is necessary 
for their existence. The relation between the finite 
self and the absolute self is the relation of manifesting 
to the manifested. Schelling identifies nature and 
mind and considers both as manifestations of a deeper 
reaUty which he calls "identity." Since this higher 
reality is neither subject nor object, it is an absolute 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 141 

identity which is the mediating process between the 
material and spiritual. The Kantian thing-in-itself 
is for Schopenhauer the will. Every object in the 
world is a manifestation of this will and the will which 
is expressed in the world is absolute. He would have 
us believe that the force which vegetates in the plant, 
expands the crystal, and turns the magnet, is a unitary 
principle called will. "It is the innermost nature, 
the kernel of every indvidual and the whole" which 
he claims appears in nature and in the reflective activity 
of man. 

Monism, which in early philosophical thinking, 
was realistic reached its culmination in the monistic 
spiritualism of Hegel. He considers that ultimate 
reality is spirit, reason, person, and organic and living. 
This absolute self manifests itself in nature, history, 
aesthetics, religion and education. Nature is called 
the otherness of spirit; history, the progress of the 
consciousness of freedom; the beautiful, the idea mani- 
festing itself in sensible form and education, a differ- 
entiation of spirit into teacher, pupil and curriculum. 
This theory is monistic and spiritualistic is an evol- 
ution of univ^ersal reason into its many manifesta- 
tions. The school in its essence is a self, a spirit, a 
person, an organic unity which differentiates itself 
into the outer factors of education. The bond which 
holds the educational process together is a subtle 
force and one with the heart of the world. It ex- 
plains the nature of the teaching process which is 
mental, beneath the physical, and spiritual, under- 
lying the material. The possibility of uniting sub- 
ject and object, the pupil and curriculum, rests upon 
the theory that both have a similar nature and that 
thought can think thought and reason can know reason. 
Hegel's spiritual principle also explains the nature 



142 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

of method by uniting thought and thing through a 
common universal principle resident in both. It 
shows how thinking is possible by making the think- 
er and the thing thought terminal aspects of one 
eternal principle. It solves the problem of school 
management by making the pupil harmonize his life 
with the thought and life of the school and outer order. 
In obeying the inherent law of the school and nature 
he obeys himself and thereby attains his spiritual 
freedom. 

Any discussion of monism inevitably leads to spir- 
itualism for many of those philosophers accepted a 
unitary principle and considered it spiritual. Leib- 
nitz claims that the essence of the world is immaterial 
and that force is spiritual in nature. His monads are 
psychical and related to a supreme monad. Berkley 
in his spiritualism asserts that a soul or spirit is an 
active being whose existence consists in not being 
perceived but in perceiving ideas and thinking. He 
was a subjectivist and put stress upon inner experience 
rather than upon empirical knowledge. German 
philosophy, particularly of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel 
and Schopenhauer, is spiritualistic and maintains that 
the ultimate nature of the world is some form of 
consciousness. In Hegelian terminology spirit is 
the truth of nature, freedom is the truth of necessity 
and the noumenon is the truth of the phenomenon. 
In fact self-consciousness or the self-determining 
spirit is the reality of things and is a principle which 
not only explains the world but the state, the church, 
society and the school. 

It is not science but philosophy that has taught us 
that education is a spiritual process rather than a 
physical or physiological process. It is the function 
of education to correlate the mind of the student with 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 143 

the mind of literature, science, history and other sub- 
jects. Education takes into consideration the fact 
that there is a mind principle in the world and a mind 
at the other end of the series which is able to compre- 
hend and transmute this objective mind into subjec- 
tive terms. Education and knowledge rest upon the 
philosophical principle that the world is one and 
that the human mind is able to comprehend this 
unity. Every factor in education has a spiritual 
phase and the whole scheme of education is but an 
objectification of the Eternal Consciousness. 

Much of the monistic and spiritualistic philosophy 
is impersonal but some thinkers consider reality 
personal. Personalism teaches that this spiritual 
principle is a self or person or by the pluralistic per- 
sonalists it is considered a community of selves. Both 
the monistic and pluralistic personalists believe that 
reality is personal but the former considers it a single 
self while the latter would make it a combination of 
selves. It will not be necessary to discuss the minute 
differences of these two schools of thought but rather 
to agree with both that the heart of the world is 
personal. 

Personalism has an intimate relationship with 
education because it teaches that all reality including 
the school is personal. The school is spiritual in 
nature, the unity of selves or persons and is truer to 
life than any presupposition of impersonalism. The 
problem of educational personalism is to determine the 
nature, number and relations of selves which make 
up the school and ascertain whether the thought of 
literature and other subjects is personal or impersonal. 
Since thought from its nature must be personal the 
world which is but an expression of the thought of 
God is personal, and the thought of all literature, 



.144 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

science and history must also be personal because it is 
the thought of some thinking mind. The teacher 
knows he is a person; and as one ethical school says, 
must respect other beings as persons, therefore, the 
school which is merely the organization of persons 
is itself a person "writ large." Teaching is an ac- 
tivity existing between persons and has many per- 
sonal elements, and personal freedom for its supreme 
end. 

The three systems of philosophy discussed in this 
group are preliminary to and include the fourth; 
namely, idealism. Any theory that teaches that the 
universe is the work of mind is called idealism. This 
universal mind expresses itself in both mind and 
matter and all outer existence is but an objectifica- 
tion of this inner architectonic spirit. In order to 
account for the inflexible regularity of the world, its 
order, coherence and rationality, it is necessary to 
posit an infinite mind from which all things proceed. 
In this mind nature must be thought of as existing 
in a permanent system of determinations which are 
to be objectified in the outer order of things. An 
idealistic philosophy is a guide to both theoretical and 
practical life for the whole order of things has no 
meaning except through the experience and activity 
of mind. Our ideal of knowledge and conduct, 
which fulfils our aims and satisfies our spirit, trans- 
cends our achievements, for ideals, things that ought 
to be and are not, are the deepest realities within us. 
In fact ideals are the source of one's striving, for really 
our life is but the objectification of our ideals. Both 
life and education are processes for there is a constant 
motion from the ideal to the real, from promise to 
fulfilment. Idealism teaches the unity of the spirit- 
ual nature of things which dominates poetry, philoso- 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 145 

phy and education and which give us the true ex- 
planation of teaching and learning. There is now a 
general belief in this unity of the universe and we 
now consider man, "not spirit plus soul plus body, but 
spirit, soul and body interfused." It is this spirit 
within which struggles for achievement and tries to 
realize its purposes, ends and aims. The ideals which 
are never attained, are still the operative powers in 
the individual and the essential factors in his existence. 
An individual is never at his best only when confronted 
with living issues and every advance in knowledge 
reveals greater difficulties yet to be solved. 

Of all the systems of metaphysical thought, ideal- 
ism gives the best interpretation of the educational 
process and shows that knowledge is a product of mind. 
The world with which the educator deals is the world 
built up by the mind. The objects of science are cast in 
the molds of thought and unless there is some rational- 
ity in the world it is unknown and unknowable. Since 
the world is an expression of thought and our thought 
has something universal in it, the unity between subject 
and object becomes apparent and thought finds itself 
in the thing. If this proposition were not true, 
knowledge would not be possible and the school and 
education would have no function to perform. Since 
the human mind and outer world must be traced to 
a common source in the creative thought and will of 
the absolute, then thought realizes itself in its other- 
ness and finally attains its freedom. It is not possible 
to analyze the absolute reason only in its outer form, 
in finite mind, and in finite existence. 

According to idealism the school is a spiritual unity 
of teacher and pupil and its objective form is but an 
expression of the inner living, formative principle. 
Whatever is, is mind before it becomes objective 



146 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

reality. The mind automobile or the universal 
automobile always exists before the material thing. 
The ideal creates the real but the real returns upon 
the ideal and performs that function for which it is 
created. The ideal school must always exist before 
the real school. The objective returns upon the 
thought school and accomplishes the purpose for 
which it was created. The external school, school 
house, blackboard, teacher and pupil are but means 
for the realization of the school idea. 

Every factor in the school, and every process in 
teaching, and every process in thinking are related 
to a world process which gives unity to difference. 
In order to make educational principles fundamental 
and abiding they must be based upon a world order 
and upon a cosmic movement. As the outer order 
implies an intelligence behind it, so the school order 
implies a rationality back of it. As all content has 
its form, so all the elements of the inner subjective 
school must have their corresponding objective 
phases. The outer school causes the pupil to realize 
himself in his ideals and shows how reason reveals 
itself in the objective order. The idea which creates 
the world and organizes the school is not a mystical 
thing, but an immanent constructive power which 
changes the potential into the actual. This self- 
determined, self-created principle found in all things 
is the Hving spirit that pervades all forms of activity 
and dominates all kinds of institutional life. This 
eternal reason is the connecting factor in every educa- 
tional process, the all-embracing energy in the teach- 
ing process and the fundamental reality in the life 
process. 

It will be seen in conclusion that metaphysics has a 
close relationship to education; for all thinking, all 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 147 

knowing and all teaching are metaphysical in nature. 
In order that a metaphysics of education be possible 
there must be a uniformity and rationality in the 
world and an individual capable of transmuting this 
outer intelligence into inner meaning. Such an edu- 
cational metaphysics traces the intelligence in the 
school, and the thought in subject-matter back to a 
supreme intelligence which is the presupposition 
and fundamental reality of existence and education. 



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Baker, J. H Education and Life 

Bakewell, cm Latter-Day Flowing Philoso- 
phy. 
Balfour, Arthur, A Defense of Philosophical 

Doubt. 

Baldwin, J. M Development and Progress 

Baldwin, J. M The Hand-Book of Psychology 

Baldwin, J. M Dictionary of Psychology and 

Philosophy 
Baldwin, J. M Fragments of Philosophy and 

Science 

Berkeley, Geo Theory of Vision 

BosENQUET, Bernard The Education of the 

Young 

BowNE, B. P Theism 

BowNE, B. P Personalism 

BowNE, B. P Metaphysics 

BowNE, B. P Theory of Thought and Knowledge 

BowNE, B. P. .Introduction to Psychological Theory 

148 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 149 

BowNE, B. P Principles of Ethics 

Bradley, F. H .Appearance and Reality 

Bradley, H. F Truth and Practical 

Bradley, F. H Ethical Studies 

Bryan, W. L The Teacher 

Bryant, W. N Hegel's Educational Ideas 

BucHNER, J. F Educational Theory of Kant 

Butler, N. M Philosophy 

Caird, Edward. . . . Essays on Literature and Philoso- 
phy 

Caird, Edward Critical Philosophy of Kant 

Caird, Edward Hegel 

Caird, Edward Individualism and Socialism 

Caird, Edward Present Problems of Philoso- 
phy 

Caird, Edward Social Philosophy of Comte 

Caird, John Introduction to the Philosophy of 

Religion 

Caird, John Personal Element in Teaching 

Caird, John University Addresses 

Calkins, Mary W Persistent Problems in Phil- 
osophy 

Carus, Paul Monism and Dualism 

Clifford, W. K Lectures and Essays 

Clodd, Edward The Primer of Evolution 

Comte, Aug The Positive Philosophy 

Davidson, Thomas. . .Education of the Greek People 

Davidson, Thomas Education as World-Building 

Davidson, Thomas The History of Education 

Davidson, Thomas Rousseau and Education 

According to Nature 
Davidson, Thomas Aristotle and Ancient Educa- 

tional Ideals. 

DeCarmo, Charles Essentials of Method 

Dewey, John The Significance of Knowledge 



150 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

Dewey, John How we Think 

Dewey, John Studies in Logical Theory 

Dewey, John Psychology 

Dewey, John The School and Society 

Dewey, John Moral Principles in Education 

Drummond, Henry . The Natural Law in the Spiritual 

World 
Dresser, H. W. . . Education and Philosophical Ideals 

DuTTON, S. T Social Phases in Education 

Everett, C. C The Science of Thought 

Everett, C. C Fitche's Science of Knowledge 

Erdman, J. E History of Philosophy 

Fairbrother, N. H Philosophy of T. H. Green 

Falckenberg, Richard. . History of Modern Philoso- 
phy 

Ferrier, J. F Institutes of Metaphysics 

FiSKE, John Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy 

FisKE, John Darwinianism and Other Essays 

FiCHTE, J. C The Science of Knowledge 

Fleshman, a. C The Educational Process 

Flint, Robert Agnosticism 

FouiLLEE, A. J. E.... Education from the National 
Standpoint 

Eraser, A. C Philosophy of Theism 

Froebel, Frederick Education of Man 

FuLLERTON, C. C Introduction to Philosophy 

Green, T. H Introduction to Hume 

Green, T. H Prolegomena to Ethics 

Griggs, E. H The New Humanism 

Haldane, R. D Pathway to Reality 

Harris, N. T. . . . Psychological Foundations to Edu- 
cation 

Harris, N. T Hegel's First Principles 

Harris, N. T Hegel's Logic 

Harris, N. T Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divine 

Comedy 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 151 

Harris, N. T. . . Introduction to the Study of Philoso- 
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Harris, N. T.... Journal of Speculative Philosophy 

Hartley, David Observations on Man 

Hegel, G. N. F Phenomenology of Spirit 

Hegel, G. N. F The Logic 

Hegel, G. N. F Philosophy of History 

Hegel, G. N. F Philosophy of Art 

Hegel and Michelet, Philosophy of Art 

Herbart, J. F Outlines of Educational Doctrine 

Herbart, J. F Metaphysics 

HiBBiN, J. G Hegel's Logic 

HiBBiN, J. G The Problem of Philosophy 

HoBHOUSE, L. F Theory of Knowledge 

HoFFDiNG, Harold Problems of Philosophy 

Hoffman, F. S The Sphere of Science 

HoRNE, H. H The Philosophy of Education 

HORNE, H. H Idealism in Education 

HowisoN, G. H The Limits of Evolution 

Hughes, J. L Froebel's Educational Laws 

Hume, David. . .Inquiry Concerning Human Under- 
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Huxley, T. H Evolution of Ethics 

Illingsworth, J. R Personality Human, and 

Divine 

James William The Will to Believe 

James, William The Thing and its Relations 

James, William Psychology 

James, William A Pluralistic Universe 

James, William Pragmatism 

Janet, Paul Final Causes 

Jevon, N. S Lessons in Logic 

Jevon, N. S The Principles of Science 

Jones, Henry Philosophy of Lotze 

Jones, Henry Idealism as a Practical Guide 



152 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

Jones, Henry Essays — Philosophical Criticism 

Kant, Immanuel Critique of Pure Reason 

Kedney, J. S Hegel's Aesthetics 

KiDD, Benjamin Social Evolution 

KuLPE, Oswald Introduction to Philosophy 

Ladd, C. T Introduction to Philosophy 

Ladd, C. T Philosophy of Knowledge 

Ladd, C. T Philosophy of Mind 

Ladd, C. T A Theory of Reality 

Land, Ossian Educational Creeds 

LeConte, Joseph, Evolution 

Lewes, G. H Problem of Philosophy and Life 

LiNDSEY, James. . . .Studies in European Philosophy 

Locke, John Thoughts on Education 

Locke, John Conduct of the Human Under- 
standing 

Lodge, Sir Oliver Man and the Universal 

LoTZE, R. H Metaphysics 

LoQUEER, F. L Hegel as Educator 

Mackenzie, Millicent Hegel's Educational 

Theory and Practice 

Mackenzie, J. S Manuel of Ethics 

Mackenzie, J. S.. . .An Introduction to Social Phil- 
osophy 

Mackenzie, J. S Outline of Metaphysics 

Maher, Michael Psychology 

Malone, J. S The Self 

Mansel, H. L Letters and Lectures 

Martineau, James .Essays 

Marvin, N. T Introduction to Philosophy 

McMuRRY, F. M How to Study 

McTaggart, J. M. E.. .Studies in HegeHan Cosmol- 
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McVannell, J. A Hegel's Doctrine of the Will 

Mill, John Stuart System of Logic 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 153 

MiNTO., William. . . .Logic Deductive and Inductive 

MiVART, St. George Groundwork of Science 

Morris, G. S Kant's Critique of Pure Reason 

MuiRHEAD, J. H Philosophy and Life and other 

Essays 

MuLLER, Max Natural ReHgion 

MuLLER, Max Science of Thought 

MuNSTERBURG, HuGO Psychology and Life 

Munsterberg, Hugo The Ethical Values 

Nash, H. S Genesis of Social Consciousness 

Nettleship, R. L Theory of Education 

Osborne, H. F From Greeks to Darwin 

Ormond, a. F Basal Concepts in Philosophy 

Ormond, a. F Foundations of Knowledge 

Paley, William Natural Theology 

Paulsen, F An Introduction to Philosophy 

Perry, R. B The Approach to Philosophy 

Plato The Republic 

Plato Meno's Dialogue on "Education" 

Plato, The Laws 

Powell, E. P Dualism 

Rashdall, Hastings Personality, Human and 

Divine 

Raub, W. L Pragmatism and Kantianism 

Reiber, C. H Pragmatism and the Apriori 

Rein, N Outlines of Pedagogics 

RiEHL, Alois Science and Metaphysics 

Ritchie, D. G Philosophical Studies 

Rogers, A. K Student's History of Philosophy 

RoYCE, JosiAH Spirits of Modern Philosophy 

Royce, Josiah The Eternal and the Practical 

RoYCE, Josiah. . .The Religious Aspect of Philosophy 
Royce, Josiah .... The World and the Individual 

Royce, Josiah Outline of Psychology 

Royce, Josiah Studies of Good and Evil 



154 THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 

RosENKRANZ, J. K. F. . .The Philosophy of Education 

Rousseau, J. J Emileo on De I'education 

Sandison, Howard The Problem of Method 

Santa YANA, George The Life of Reason 

Schiller, F. C. S Humanism 

Seth, Andrew Hegelianism and Personality 

Shield, C. W Final Philosophy 

Schopenhauer, Arthur. . . .The World as Will and 
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Shaw, Charles Gray The Value and Dignity of 

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Shoup, F. a Mechanism and Person- 
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SiDGWiCK, Henry Lecture on T. H. Green 

SiDGWiCK, Henry The Sophists 

SiDGWiCK, Henry Method of Ethics 

Snider, D. J Ancient European Philosophy 

Snider, D. J Modern European Philosophy 

SoRLEY, W. R Ethics of Naturalism 

Spencer, Herbert First Principles 

Spencer, Herbert Data of Ethics 

Spencer, Herbert Sociology 

Spencer, Herbert Education 

Spencer, Herbert Principles of Psychology 

Stephens, Leslie Science of Ethics 

Stuchenberg, O. H. W. ..Introduction to Study of 
Philosophy 

Sturt, Henry Art and Personality 

SuTRO, Emu Duality of Man's Nature 

Taylor, E. A The Elements of Physics 

Taylor, E. A Truth and Practice 

Taylor, E. A Truth and Consequences 

Thilly, Frank What is Philosophy? 

Tompkins, Arnold Philosophy of Teaching 

Tompkins, Arnold Philosophy of School 

Management 



THE METAPHYSICS OF EDUCATION 155 

Vincent, G. E Social Mind and Education 

ViETCH, John Lecture on Metaphysics 

Wallace, William Lectures and Essays 

Wallace, William Hegels' Logic 

Wallace, William Philosophy of Mind 

Ward, James Naturalism and Agnosti- 
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Watson, John An Outline of Philoso- 
phy 

Weber, A History of Philosophy 

Whewell, William. . .Philosophy of the Inductive 
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W^ooDBRiDGE, W The Field of Logic 

Woodbridge, W Metaphysics 

WooDBRiDGE, W Perception and Epistemology 

Woodbridge, W Nature of Consciousness 

Woodbridge, W Problem of Consciousness 

Windelband, W History of Philosophy 



MAY 20 1914 



